As discussed in Part 1 of this series, Hadoop is the foremost among tools being currently used for deriving value out of Big Data. The process of gaining insights from data through Business Intelligence and analytics essentially remains the same. However, with the huge variety, volume and velocity (the 3Vs of Big Data), it’s become necessary to re-think of the data management infrastructure. Hadoop, originally designed to be used with the MapReduce algorithm to solve parallel processing constraints in distributed architectures (e.
You can’t miss all the buzz about Big Data! Over the past few years, the buzz around the cloud and Big Data shaping most of the future of computing, IT and analytics in particular has grown incessantly strong. As with most buzz words, which are then hijacked by marketing to suit their own products’ storylines, but which nonetheless manage to confuse users in business and staff in IT as well, Big Data means several things to several people.
With most companies listing BI within their top agenda, and with the rising costs and confusion around proving the worth of BI and justifying its costs, it makes sense to try and understand the evolution of BI adoption and maturity in organizations. Knowing what is possible with BI and knowing the challenges and pitfalls allows organizations to plan their BI strategy and implementation.
There are quite a few schools of thought and available literature on the lifecycle of BI implementation and maturity in organizations, defining the models.
SAP BI 4.0 release (codenamed Aurora) has been the first major release of the BI platform since SAP acquired BusinessObjects. In this release, the semantic layer (universe layer for the uninitiated) has been re-worked completely to expose all business data under a single umbrella. The self-service BI portal (aka Infoview) has been revamped with a new AJAX based design and providing quicker and easier access to content. Publishing and distribution of BI content to mass audience has been made easier.
SAP finally announced on September 14, 2010 that it was getting onto the pre-packaged analytics bandwagon. SAP announced ten applications in this first release for six industries (Consumer Products, Healthcare, Financial Services, Public Sector, Retail and Telecommunications) in its BusinessObjects offering.
Building on the rapid-marts offering that the then BOBJ used to have and leveraging SAP’s industry and line of business expertise, these new applications are based on the SAP Business Objects XI platform – WebIntelligence, Crystal Reports and Dashboards (formerly Xcelsius).