Many of the goals behind big data involve using data to find trends and predict behavior. The process of creating complex algorithms that to do this is known as Machine Learning. In the past, large enterprises have leveraged machine learning to their advantage, employing data scientists to create models that predict things like hospital readmission likelihoods.
Building a machine learning system used to require a great amount of effort. Highly technical statisticians, programmers and data scientists were needed to do things like collect and massage data into a form which could be used by the model. The software that was used to develop these tools required a considerable amount of expertise and could be very expensive. Read More
Telling a Story with Data
While the existence of a massive amount of raw data can look impressive, often it takes a great visualization of that data to tell the story of what the data truly means. Graphs, pie charts and other visualizations are used regularly to elucidate important trends that might otherwise go unnoticed.
We think of data visualization as a modern phenomenon, one dependent on digital data on a computer database or in a file. But here are some famous data visualizations, most of which pre-date computing, which have also fundamentally altered history.
Description of a Slave Ship
Today it is hard to imagine an era when the trade in slaves was a hugely profitable business. But getting people to understand the deplorable conditions slaves had to endure was a daunting task in an age that had no photography to document it. Read More
Looking for some reading material to keep you up to date on the latest topics and trends in the big data space? We’ve got a list of five books you should consider checking out.
Information Dashboard Design: Display Data for At-a-Glance Monitoring Written by Stephen Few, a leader in the world of data visualization, this book explores one of the most popular methods to get “at a glance” data: the dashboard.
Few explores topics like designing dashboards, presenting data, engaging users visually and efficiently displaying large amounts of data. He also explains he psychological ideas behind his design decisions so developers can understand not only how to design, but why they should be making design decisions based on how users experience the dashboard. Read More
Garbage in, garbage out has long been the cry of the programmer facing an unintelligible report or other output. In the past, users have relied on IT to make sure that the information they were using to make their decisions was the right data. IT was responsible for the storage, security and accessibility of that data. Times, they are a-changing.
More Data Means Less IT Involvement
In the past, the volume of data was manageable by IT departments. They had the time and the resources to do the data governance for the business intelligence groups. But as “big data” becomes more and more a part of the business decision-making process, it is quickly becoming too much for IT departments alone to handle. This leaves business users with more responsibility for their data. And that is where data governance processes become essential to the enterprise. Read More
User Driven BI in the Cloud and Within Your Application
Why do applications with embedded BI get more user adoption? How can you move away from IFRAMEs and desktop-bound code? What does the move to the Cloud mean for the app you need to deploy in 2015?
Join Izenda CEO Sanjay Bhatia and Gigaom Research on November 20th, 2014 for a webinar devoted to embedded analytics – the why and the how.
User Driven BI in the Cloud and Within Your Application
Security experts far and wide cry loudly any time there is a suggestion about using cloud services for anything but the most routine of tasks. Hacking is a concern about which many are rightfully concerned.
Yet neither can anyone deny how convenient the cloud is, and how it can increase productivity. That is why a compromise — the hybrid cloud — is continuing to make inroads in the enterprise.
The Hybrid Cloud: What is It?
The hybrid cloud is much more than spinning up a server with a connection to Amazon Web Services and calling it hybrid. The hybrid cloud allows both public and private clouds to remain separate from each other. Read More
Big news coming out of Redmond (by way of San Francisco) as Microsoft announces a host of new technology to play with in the upcoming months. Here are a few of the highlights.
G-Series Virtual Machine Sizes
One of the big announcements was the new sizes of virtual machine sizes that are coming out. Microsoft is calling these devices the G-Series and is claiming enhanced performance for “your most demanding applications.” They are upping the stakes by providing a variety of choices in processor cores, ram, and Solid State storage.
The smallest of the group, called the G1, starts out with 2 cores, 28 gigs of ram and 406 Gigs of SSD storage. The list is topped with the G5 that has a whopping 32 cores, 448 gigs of ram and over six terabytes of storage.
We’ve launched Izenda version 6.8, a new update with a lot of great new features that will help users better understand and envision their data.
Introducing the New Izenda Vision Module
The Izenda Vision add-on product gives you advanced visualizations including sunbursts, heatmaps, waterfalls and more, to empower your end users to display and make sense of their data in completely new ways. You can see the entire set of visualizations in our gallery.
We are all used to information being at the tips of our fingers. The days of sitting at a bar arguing over what year Ghostbusters came out are long gone, now that we all have access to that data on our mobile devices. As this type of access to data becomes an everyday fact of life, the business world seems to be mired in the past.
Business Intelligence (BI) tools have traditionally been reactive tools that require users to work through a team of IT experts. Those experts in turn furnish the end user with access to critical decision making reports. This model is cumbersome. In some cases, it can be too slow to work in the fast paced business world of 2014. This is where self-service BI tools come in.
