October Meet-Up Recap: "How Cloud-Based Data Warehouses are Changing Analytics"

More data= more users. 

One would think that this would hold true for organizations who claim to be fueled by their data. The reality is that most firms don’t consistently turn their data into action. According to a report from Forrester, 73% of firms aspire to be data-driven, but of this 73%, only 29% utilize it. What does this say about their approach towards data analytics? 

At our October meet-up, Dennis O’Connor, senior sales engineer at Snowflake and veteran to the data analytics space, shared his thoughts on the cloud; where it is right now and what its presence means for the future of enterprise analytics. O’Connor believes that “It’s not the data itself. It’s how you take full advantage of the insight it provides.” 

Traditional approaches haven’t perfected their approach towards healing the “data struggle”. O’Connor goes into detail, explaining where they’re falling short: 

• Hard to incorporate new data source.

• Too much time waiting for data. 

• Hard to experiment with data. 

• Reports are too slow. 

• Too much time spent on manual administration. 

• Data is stale. 

How can the data-driven dream become more accessible? The solution is in the cloud. 

Dennis O’Connor of Snowflake

O’Connor explains that with the cloud, “the possibilities are endless.” Offering low-cost, scalable cloud storage and connectivity, on-demand elasticity and optimization for diverse data; your organization can transform from being a data-driven hopeful to a self-managing organization backed by secure, actionable insights. 

What are you waiting for? Is your organization ready to make the move? 

We want to see you at our next meet-up! Join our mailing list for event updates.

October Meet-Up News: "How Cloud-Based Data Warehouses Are Changing Analytics"

Join us at our next meet-up, “How Cloud-Based Data Warehouses are Changing Analytics,” on October 22nd.

A big thank you to Rapid7 for hosting us and ODSC for helping us plan this event.

If you would like to attend, please fill out the form above. Registration is free. 

If you are unable to attend our next meetup but would like to join a future one, subscribe to our mailing list for notifications. 

August Meet-Up Recap: "The Power Of Combining BI Analytics And Machine Learning"

Data scientists spend a majority of their time completing automated tasks: cleaning, transforming, and locating their data. With machine learning proving that it has the credentials to take on these responsibilities, where should they really be redirecting their focus? 

Data governance.

At our last meetup, Daniel Gray, Senior Director of Corporate Sales Engineering at AtScale, talked all things BI, but more importantly shared his thoughts on loose definitions. What are the risks and just how far can they set your organization back? Gray believes that if your business intelligence team and your machine learning team are working on the same projects with different definitions, you won’t get the results that you want as “the chances that everyone throughout the entire organization defines the metrics exactly the same way is unlikely to happen.” 

So, where is the middle ground? The solution lies within the semantic layer. 

Gray explains that with a semantic layer, “you want to build your dimensions and hierarchies one single time, and inherit those in all of your different BI tools.” As this “will allow you to have governance and you won’t have mismatched data at the end of your cycles.” By exposing the semantic layer, you are empowering your organization to create an abstraction between your data warehouse lakes and the people that are consuming that information, enabling your team to maximize results. 

Using these tips, how are you going to elevate your organization? 

August Meet-Up News: "The Power Of Combining BI Analytics And Machine Learning"

Hack/Reduce has teamed up with ODSC to introduce its August 2019 meet-up! This month Hack/Reduce welcomes Daniel Gray, Senior Director of Corporate Sales Engineering at AtScale. At this event, Gray will speak about the “The Power of Combining BI Analytics and Machine Learning”. Gray will speak to his expertise about descriptive and prescriptive analytics, as well as incorporate his vast knowledge in data warehousing, big data, and machine learning. He will go through use cases and the technologies and databases he has worked with, with a Q&A to follow.

Come to 1 Broadway, Cambridge, MA on Tuesday August 27 from 6:00 pm- 8:00 pm to learn more!

How The Cloud Giants Are Defining The Future Of Data

Cloud services nowadays are more efficient than they have ever been. The most prominent players of the cloud giants have been able to cut costs and prosper greatly. The cloud has started a revolution that is now the backbone to digital transformation across every enterprise on Earth. 

The “big players” of the cloud have contributed to the success of multiple different companies through sustainable growth. The “big players” include: Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), VMware, International Business Machine Corp (IBM), and Oracle. Microsoft grants the architecture of Azure full credit for its sustained growth. Though it is true that on-prem storage is still successful and preferable to some, Microsoft has made it clear that they are “all in” with cloud transformation, and now, every aspect of the business feeds into or off of Azure. Azure is the most efficient way to store Microsoft’s data, and will be the future of the company.

Credit is due to Amazon Web Services (AWS) for popularizing the cloud. AWS is a very well known cloud platform due to its existential success. They were a significant contribution to cloud awareness, hence how the company helped popularized the cloud. AWS has helped more than just financial aspects of Amazon. AWS leads the public cloud market while also making up more than half of Amazon's operating profits. Aside from being profitable, AWS also provides customers with exceptional security and governance. AWS is the sole vendor approved by the US to host confidential data. All in all, AWS is the “cash cow” of Amazon, and an essential asset to the companies success and growth. AWS is creating a bright future for Amazon.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) contradicts AWS. GCP argues they have been running the cloud for the past 20 years, considering they were built on a cloud platform. GCP is one of the fastest growing businesses in the country, arguably the fastest growing cloud player among the leading cloud vendors. The reason GCP can not compete with AWS and Azure though, is merely because of the quality of their service level agreements (SLAs). Regardless, based on how quickly their company expands, GCP will continue to flourish in the cloud environment; especially after they fix the quality of their SLAs.

VMware is the leader in data center visualization and is superior to other platforms in its ability to build rounded relationships with other vendors. These relationships, especially with AWS and Azure, are the reason for VMware’s constant increase in profit. VMware’s parent company, Dell, prefers their partnership with Azure because it is a more “formal” partnership, but VMware has made it clear that AWS is their preference. Vmware likes the hierarchical idea of “the top private platform with the top public platform”. They made it clear to the public that the VMware AWS partnership is going great, keeping the day to day business effective and efficient, guaranteeing it will continue in the future, and continue to grow and benefit both platforms.

IBM has also been trying to partner with VMware, in order to expand its own cloud. IBM provides SI services for multi-cloud environments, similar to VMware, and also sells its own cloud. IBM’s reputation is very beneficial in partnerships considering its nickname “Big Blue”. “Big Blue” essentially translates to a company with a very good reputation, good quality product, reliable, and is consistently profitable. IBM has maintained this reputation by being a productive, cost-effective company, while also remaining trustworthy. A partnership between IBM and VMware would enhance IBM business, allowing them to continue to expand on every vertical in the future.

Oracle is the overall leader in databases. Oracle plans to migrate 50% of their share in the database market to their cloud platform. The company believes that even just moving their workloads to the cloud could be upwards of $100 billion dollars. The company believes that there is no other technology in the market that is superior to their Gen 2 product. Gen 2 is Oracle’s cloud architecture, which divides customer data from cloud control. If their predictions after the migration are accurate, Oracle will be on a significant uprise, definitely opening more doors for their future.

All six of these “cloud giants” have many differences, but they all ultimately help companies progressively grow and continue to prosper. The cloud is the future of data storage, and even though on-prem is still very relevant and some companies prefer on-prem storage, cloud platforms are defining the future, one company at a time.