Big Data and Analytics: 10 Ways IBM Demonstrates Leadership

by Darryl K. Taft

IBM brings new big data search capabilities with InfoSphere Data Explorer, a search-based big data exploration tool that helps clients distinguish different forms of data through data exploration and discovery—and helps clients visualize structured and unstructured data from diverse sources. InfoSphere Data Explorer brings big data out of the lab and onto the desktops of front-line employees, allowing organizations to enhance the customer experience.

Enhancements to the IBM PureData System for Hadoop portfolio simplifies Hadoop systems by allowing users to get up and running in hours, rather than days or weeks. Built-in archiving tools, simplified administration and higher levels of security than open-source systems are also included. In an audited benchmark conducted by STAC, the Securities Technology Analysis Center, InfoSphere BigInsights for Hadoop has been found to deliver an approximate 4x performance advantage on average over open-source Hadoop.

Addressing security concerns, InfoSphere Data Privacy for Hadoop allows clients to anonymize data in Hadoop, NoSQL and relational systems. With data activity monitoring capabilities, the technology can also help organizations prevent unauthorized access of confidential information stored in Hadoop systems.

IBM is continuing to leverage its BLU Acceleration technology. Made in IBM labs, BLU Acceleration for DB2 10.5 was announced in late June and IBM BLU Acceleration Solution — Power Systems Edition announced in October. BLU Acceleration enables faster and less complex analytic queries and reporting using dynamic in-memory columnar technologies for business intelligence and data warehouse applications.

The Information Governance Dashboard provides a set of sample Cognos reports that you can use or customize for many common governance reporting tasks. You can also create ad hoc reports by dragging and dropping report elements in the Cognos workspace.

Organizations typically discard or archive IT operations data, preventing them from tapping a valuable business resource. Now with IBM SmartCloud Analytics — Predictive Insights, they can sift through terabytes of IT operations data in real time, spotting only the trends that are critical to IT network performance.

IBM announced a new version of SmartCloud Virtual Storage Center, an automation tool for ensuring companies are storing the right kinds of data in the right places, based on need, use and criticality. Using a combination of machine learning and analytics-driven data management, the software learns a business’s IT infrastructure and priorities, identifying the type of storage best suited for an organization’s data and automatically making the change without interruption to the user or applications.

IBM is introducing new data discovery software that enables business users to visually interact with and apply advanced analytics to their data without specialized skills, so they can get deeper insights into their business. The software will help close the analytics skills gap that makes current data discovery tools inaccessible for the everyday business user. The three new visualization tools are Project Neo, IBM Concert on Cloud and the Cognos Visualization Customizer.

The health care industry continues to be a big investor in big data and analytics technology, and at IOD IBM announced how two health providers are using the latest cutting-edge tech to improve their services. Memorial Healthcare System is using IBM Big Data analytics and Smarter Content management capabilities to prevent fraud and reduce costs. Emory University Hospital is using software from IBM and Excel Medical Electronics (EME).

By applying IBM’s analytics technology to big data, Denihan Hospitality Group can now sift through massive amounts of information—from customer feedback to room price, length of stay and more—to understand why customers choose their hotels and why they choose to return.