Big Data and Cloud Computing are two mainstream technologies that are at the center of concern in IT. Read on to know why both these technologies make a terrific match…
Big Data and Cloud Computing are two mainstream technologies that are at the center of concern in Information Technology (IT). Basically, Big data is all about dealing with the massive scale of data whereas Cloud computing is about tech infrastructure. However, the simplification offered by Big data and Cloud technology is the key reason for their huge enterprise adoption.
The combination of both technologies is beneficial for organizations. Even though both these technologies are in the stage of evolution, their combination leverages scalable and cost-effective solution in big data analytics. But again, can one tag Big data and Cloud computing as a perfect combination? Well, there are data points to backup this point.
Technological Combo
Big data and Cloud computing technologies have their own value and several businesses are targeting to combine the two techniques to reap more business benefits. Both these technologies aim to enhance the revenue of an organization while reducing the investment cost. While Cloud manages the local software, Big data helps in business decisions. In other words, the cloud can help you process and analyze your big data faster, leading to insights that can improve your products and business.
Big data projects typically get started with data storage and application of basic analytics modules. However, as you discover ways to extract data at a much larger scale, you will need to find better methods to process and analyze this data, which will likely require infrastructure upgrades. You may add more capacity to your in-house data warehouse or power up more servers to cater to the rapidly-increasing analytics requirements. But even with the boost of your on-premise systems, your infrastructure eventually may not be able to keep up. This is where the cloud comes in, or more fittingly, when your big data goes to the cloud.
Benefits of Big Data & Cloud
The benefits of moving to the cloud are quite obvious, but these benefits take on a bigger role when we talk of big data analytics. Big data involves manipulating petabytes and perhaps soon, exabytes and zettabytes of data, and the cloud’s scalable environment makes it possible to deploy data-intensive applications that power business analytics. The cloud also simplifies connectivity and collaboration within an organization, which gives more employees access to relevant analytics and streamlines data sharing.
While it’s easy for CIOs to recognize the benefits of putting big data in the cloud, it may not be as simple to get C-suite executives and other primary stakeholders on board. But there’s a business case to be made for the big data + cloud pairing because it gives executives a better view of the business and boosts data-driven decision making. For instance, optimization of the supply chain and efficient tracking of defects — both principal concerns of a COO of a physical product company — is made easier with material data on hand. Data is also key for the CMO looking to increase customer engagement and loyalty, and for the CFO seeking new opportunities for cost reduction, revenue growth, and strategic investments. And all of these insights can be easily presented to the CEO to inform fast, strategic decision making.
