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Software AG today announced the availability of the Apama Streaming Analytics platform release 9.9, which adds support for predictive analytics and Internet of things (IoT) protocols and standards.
Apama is Software AG’s platform for streaming analytics and intelligent, automated action on fast-moving big data. It combines event processing, messaging, in-memory data management and visualization and is designed as a comprehensive platform for managing vast, fast-moving data streams and turning meaningful insight into action.
“We’re developing a new release every six months, which makes Apama the most comprehensive and competitive platform in the market for building applications that monitor, analyze and act on vast, fast-moving data streams,” Dr. Giles Nelson, senior vice president of product strategy and marketing at Software AG, said in a statement. “The new enhancements in this release will help business analysts monitor connected devices in the ‘Internet of things,’ operate across Cloud or on-premises IT deployments, and, include predictive analytics.”
Reston, Va.-based Software AG said the new functionality in Apama 9.9 enhances support for a number of applications, including market surveillance, fraud detection, predictive maintenance, smart logistics and several other Internet of things and real-time marketing use cases.
Apama 9.9’s predictive analytics enables business analysts to identify significant events and take actions before they occur. For instance, better predicting when maintenance should happen enables organizations to fix their high-value machines and equipment before failures actually occur and minimize the impact to their business.
“The ability to predict what is likely to happen next is essential to satisfying customers, improving operations, finding fraud and beating the competition,” Nelson said. “Predictive analytics uses patterns found in historical and real-time data to indicate what is ahead. The addition of Apama and its historical, real-time and predictive analytics functionality dramatically enhances the capabilities of our Digital Business Platform and enables enterprises to identify and act on future risks and opportunities in terms of revenue, resources, output and more.”
In addition, Software AG enhanced its support for the new MQTT and AMQP standards and protocols, which enable easier integration with the Internet of things.
The new Apama Queries Designer enables business analysts to develop Apama Queries within Software AG Designer more easily. Apama queries now include improved tooling with additional tooltips, simpler screen layouts, better on-screen representations of data, advanced expression editing and more informative error reporting.
Meanwhile, support for Docker containers helps Apama users deploy and use the Apama platform consistently in on-premise and cloud environments.
With the enhancements in Apama 9.9, Software AG joins a host of analytics providers vying for their share of the market. SAS recently announced improved support for IoT at its Premier Business Leadership Series event in Las Vegas at the end of last month. SAS software—including event-stream processing, in-memory analytics, data visualization and data management technologies—empowers organizations to exploit the enormous amount of data pouring in from devices connected to the Internet of things.
SAS analytics reveal patterns and trends in IoT data, even while the data is still in motion. SAS helps manufacturers, energy companies and retailers dig value from masses of data from sensors, meters and monitoring devices.
“The IoT is all about applying analytics to enormous amounts of data being generated by millions of connected devices,” Jim Davis, CMO at SAS, said in a statement. “Analytics applied to that data drives real value for business, governments and society as a whole. SAS has an advantage because we’ve identified standard analytic procedures that allow organizations to enhance the customer experience, improve product quality and yield results from connected devices. While others are scrambling to develop scalable analytics to tame the IoT data onslaught, SAS has been analyzing this kind of sensor data for decades.”
For instance, Geneia is a SAS customer that works with health insurance companies and health providers. It provides a monitoring device and Theon data integration and analysis system that helps cut medical costs and improve patient health.
“The Internet of things strengthens our ability to improve people’s health and longevity,” said Heather Lavoie, president and chief operating officer of Geneia. “SAS’ IoT-friendly technologies help us incorporate contextual data, paint a robust picture of the patient and inform better health care decisions.”
Analyzing sensor data with SAS enables Geneia-supported health care teams to interpret changes in weight, pulse, oxygen levels and respiration rates in heart patients within the context of the patient’s health and lifestyle, and subsequently determine the best course of action. These symptoms can indicate deteriorating health. Their detection, Lavoie said, can trigger earlier, life-saving intervention.
“To make the Internet of things useful, we need an analytics of things,” said Tom Davenport, co-founder and director of research at the International Institute for Analytics. “This will mean new data management and integration approaches, and new ways to analyze streaming data continuously. SAS is intensely focused on this important area.”