2012 was the year of big data.2011 had been a good year for the hyped concept,too,and 2013 is more than likely to see a continued glut of big data discourse in the IT market.
But there are other themes in this collection of top 10 information management stories in 2012.That which Gartner analysts are calling the logical data warehouse,others the hybrid data ecosystem,and similar,albeit in the form of data virtualisation.Master data management,data quality–at Network Rail and the West Midlands Police respectively–and data visualisation feature.
1 Big data:Utilities rise to the smart meter challenge
Utilities data analytics is set to power up as mass smart metering and its associated big data come to the UK.Isle of Wight foreshadows smart energy future,EDF uses analytics for customer retention.
2 Teradata CTO:Big data technology starting to hit the mainstream
Formerly the bailiwick of highly tech-savvy web analytics companies and Silicon Valley dotcoms,big data technology is gradually beginning to show up in more traditional organisations such as banks,telcos and insurance firms.And this is just the beginning,according to Stephen Brobst,the chief technology officer at data warehousing firm Teradata.
3 Companies struggle to get past open source big data experimentation
Open source big data technologies seem stuck in the sand pit of experimentation in UK corporate organisations.Experts say:experiment,but keep business value in mind.
Speaking at a Computer Weekly roundtable on the topic,Bob Harris,chief technology officer at Channel 4,said big data initiatives will likely require organisations to adopt new technologies.
4 Cornell Cern project plumps for NoSQL DBMS
Physicists in the Compact Muon Solenoid(CMS)detector at the Large Hadron Collider at Cern are benefiting from a MongoDB NoSQL database management system that gives them unified access to data from a range of databases.
5 Data visualisation success hinges on solid storytelling skills
Tableau's Jock Mckinlay on why data is inert and worthless without the twin practices of visualisation and storytelling.
6 Data virtualisation on rise as ETL alternative for data integration
The Phone House and Novartis turn to data virtualisation from Denodo and Composite to gain a single logical view of disparate data sources.
7 Network Rail selects Informatica MDM platform for whole-system view
Network Rail chose Informatica for the MDM stage of its change programme,aimed at reducing costs by 30%by 2019.Its Orbis unit is working with Capgemini on an eight-year asset information effort.
8 Business intelligence and enterprise search:Marriage in prospect,but still no ring
Business intelligence and enterprise search are converging slowly in corporations.But this is frustrated by competing technology legacies,according to experts canvassed recently.
9 West Midlands Police develops golden view of criminals and suspects
West Midlands Police,the second largest force in the UK,seeks to reduce risk to its officers and the public by using DataFlux software that gives a master record for criminals and suspects.
10 Big data analytics set to confound conventional adoption curve in UK
Leading executives from US big data and analytics companies tell a story of imminent increased adoption in the UK.MapR,Cloudera,ParAccel and Pentaho spokesmen sketch out the likely adoption curve.
