INSIGHT: Is Big Data Enough?

“I am concluding very quickly that “Big Data” as we have viewed it for the last five years is not enough.”

But is this an unusual observation by Brian Hopkins, research analyst, Forrester Research?

“I see firms using words like “real-time” or “right-time” or “fast data” to suggest the need is much bigger than Big Data,” he adds, “its about connecting data to action in a continuous learning loop.”

But what does this mean practically?

For Hopkins, it means that the focus of Big Data technology is shifting from Hadoop to a platform approach that includes “insights-to-execution” technologies.

“As a result we are seeing some strange bedfellows such as data science and knowledge management/collaboration, streaming analytics and agile software delivery tools, or finally machine learning data science and data ingestion / ETL,” he adds.

It also means that the most important use cases are those that let businesses understand and serve increasingly powerful customers, adds Hopkins.

“The migration of Clickfox to Hadoop is a fascinating example. Wibidata’s real time customer experience platform is another.”