Will The Real Big Data Players Please Stand Up?

By Ami Gal

6.12.2014 twitter linkedin facebook

Which companies serve as the target audience for Big Data? Why are these businesses in particular benefiting from Big Data analytics?
There have been recent articles floating around mentioning that Big Data is really just “small potatoes,” or that companies with small data aren’t benefiting from Big Data analytics. While some of these statements contain some truth (how can a company benefit from Big Data analytics if they only have small sets of data?), there are many enterprises that are actually making improvements from Big Data analytics.
Five markets in particular are reaping the benefits of Big Data. These markets include: The Internet of Things, healthcare, cyber security, telecommunication and finance. Why are these five sectors finding the most success with Big Data? Because these markets all have large volumes of data which need to be analyzed in the fastest way possible in order to derive valuable business insights.

Big Data Gets Smart

The idea of “smart” has hit a whole new level with the Internet of Things. We’ve gone from smart people, to smart technologies (phones), to smart cities (meters), to smart structures (houses), to smart appliances (refrigerators), to smart transportation (cars) – the list seems endless.

And just as the human brain produces continuous thoughts, connected devices constantly generate large volumes of data in real-time. And sometimes, just as humans need to have their thoughts evaluated to make better decisions, the data from these devices must be analyzed to derive valuable insights.

With that in mind, it’s safe to say that Big Data is the real driving force behind the Internet of Things market. An IDC report estimates that companies could generate $1.6 trillion in additional revenue and cost savings over the next four years if they are able to better understand their data.

This also means that a reliable Big Data technology must be put in place to analyze the large volumes of data coming from connected devices, which is exactly what SQream Technologies aims to do with their revolutionary Big Data database. Data driven organizations using SQream’s database are able to manage more machine data in less time. The smart GPU technology behind SQream’s database enables 20X faster performance in terms of query processing and ETL runtime, providing instant analysis from machine generated data.

Big Data Saving Lives

It might seem too good to be true, but Big Data is now being used by healthcare professionals to combat diseases and create personalized medicine. For example, Big Data is being used by genome researchers to analyze volumes of data coming from genome sequencing. Once genomic data is analyzed, scientists can determine early-stage illnesses and customize medicine to fit an individual’s exact needs.
The Stanford School of Medicine for example has started using real-time analysis of genomic data to discover new developments in cancer diagnoses. The New York Genome Center has also teamed up with a leading Big Data provider to accelerate genomic medicine and deliver more personalized treatment options to cancer patients. In a healthcare study conducted by PWC, it’s noted that 95% of healthcare professionals plan to explore better ways of using and managing Big Data.

Big Data technology providers are also customizing databases to manage the volumes of genomic data. At SQream Technologies, we’ve created a database capable of managing petabytes of genomic data in a cost-effective manner. Our technology is based on NVIDIA Tesla K40 GPUs (graphic processing units) which enables more storage space for genomic data and allows us to run queries much faster due to the raw power of the GPUs. Faster analysis on large data sets provides medical professionals with quick results which could potentially save lives.

Big Data Protecting Customer Information

Lately, not a month has gone by without the news of another cyber attack. The recent cyber security breach against Ebay happened just after Target and Yahoo’s email services had been taken over by hackers. These frequent cyber breaches are causing major concerns for online enterprises and puts all consumers at risk for exposure of their most personal information.
Big Data analytics are now being used by businesses to predict cyber attacks in real-time (zero-day attacks), making it possible to immediately combat these attacks. Big Data technologies also allow professionals to combine data from different sources in order to gain a better understanding of potential threats and discover why previous threats occurred. SQream’s Big Data database makes this process very easy for businesses focused on combating cyber attacks because large volumes of data can be processed in near real-time.
Cyber security companies are also implementing Big Data analytics to prevent cyber attacks. Israeli cyber security company, Fortscale, uses Big Data for user intelligence providing easy access to user’s profiles and behavior patterns. The solutions used by Fortscale ensures advanced threat detection and defends against targeted attacks. Gartner predicts that by 2016, 25% of global companies will use Big Data analytics for at least one security use case.

Big Data Providing Company Insights

Telecommunication companies are being flooded daily with customer data. Data is generated each time someone makes a phone call, sends a text message or logs online. Loads of data means lots of customer insights, which could lead to improved customer service, increased revenue, less customer churn and overall better business practices.
Many telecommunication companies have already jumped on board the Big Data bandwagon. AT&T for example says that the company is seeking new technologies to improve service and efficiency, and has turned to Big Data analytics as a solution. AT&T has recently created a tower-outage analyzer which provides an in-depth analysis of network data being generated from failed cell towers and those towers nearby. Insights from this data provides the company with information on which repairs must immediately be made and how the failure affects their customers.
Other telecommunication providers are implementing Big Data technologies to manage their growing volumes of data. At SQream Technologies, we are working with a variety of telecommunication providers, helping them achieve fast analytics in less time at an affordable rate.One leading telecommunications giant using SQream’s database has already executed a variety of SQL queries on a single NVIDIA GPU accelerator on over 18 billion call data records. This is the equivalent of four months worth of multimedia IP traffic, a groundbreaking record in terms of data analysis performance and runtime.

Big Data Helps Understand Customers

Many well-known companies in the financial sector are also benefiting big from Big Data. Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Discover and MasterCard have started implementing Big Data to better understand customer relationships and improve business growth.
MasterCard is taking Big Data analytics a step forward by announcing their plan to boost business by selling data to retailers, banks and governments. This data would allow these businesses to increase sales, revenue and make overall improvements.
These companies are also analyzing structured and semi-structured data sets coming from customers clicking on their websites, transactions records, bankers’ notes and other areas where data can be collected. Once analyzed, this data can be used to determine personalized customer offers like which credit options are best for certain individuals, improved customer service, payment fraud detection and much more.
SQream’s database serves as a perfect solution for financial organizations seeking Big Data analytics due to the impressive query runtime and capability to manage structured and semi-structured data sets. As Big Data continues to solve growing problems in the financial sector, a number of many other Big Data providers will customize databases suitable for these organizations.

Big Data Just A Buzzword?

It’s true that Big Data has become a big buzzword, but there is a real meaning behind all of the hype. When utilized correctly, enterprises in various sectors can benefit big from Big Data. With the right technology and a clear Big Data roadmap, companies can see improvements in customer care, security efforts, technology growth and deeper customer insights.

Ami Gal, CEO of SQream Technologies, will personally be discussing Big Data and its impact on various sectors at the 14th annual NY Venture Summit taking place June 16-17. Mr. Gal will explain the benefits that SQream’s Big Data database can bring to enterprises seeking a cost-effective and hassle-free solution to Big Data analytics. For more information on this topic please click here.