Peter O’Connor – iStart leading the way to smarter technology investment.

Delivering a data analytics program that delivers

Jennene Kelly — Mon, 16 Dec 2019 01:01:13 +0000

Is your business or organisation hungry for the insights – and the ensuing competitive edge – a data analytics program can deliver?

You’re not alone. After a slow start, a growing swell of Australian and New Zealand enterprises are embracing the data analytics revolution; looking for actionable insights in the often-expansive repositories of data in their keeping.

Research suggests they have some catching up to do.

A 2018 report by Melbourne Business School and AT Kearney found Australian enterprises lagged behind their global counterparts, extracting 12 per cent less value from data analytics than comparable companies around the world.

Local businesses have some catching up to do.

Risk averse corporate culture, reluctance to experiment and staffing issues were cited as the reasons local companies had found themselves towards the back of the pack.

Doing more with data
Technology-wise, it’s a good time for local organisations to step up the pace.

Historically, data analysis was a rarefied and often costly exercise, financially feasible for large and well-resourced organisations only. That’s no longer the case.

Instead, cloud-based data warehousing technology is making it easier and more economical for enterprises to embark on data analytics projects which can help them maintain competitive advantage in an increasingly cutthroat commercial environment.

Furthermore, experts have warned that companies which fail to embrace data analytics are likely to find themselves behind the eight ball, and out of business, in a short space of time.

In late 2018, managing director of the Institute of Analytics Professionals of Australia, Annette Slunjski warned that businesses which did not become data driven within five years would cease to be in business.

Looking to the cloud for better answers
The rise of the cloud has conditioned organisations to expect even the most complex of technology arrays to perform like applications and be just as easy to manage and maintain.

Historically, data warehousing solutions did not fit this description. Typically hosted on premises, they were complicated and expensive to operate and maintain.

In 2020, that legacy model no longer answers. Organisations hastening to join the data analytics race want it to be affordable and easy for them to do so.

And not just for the small group of individuals with data analytics expertise either.

Instead, for many organisations, the goal is to make the exercise as egalitarian and ubiquitous as possible; something that’s embedded in processes and practices across the enterprise, not a discrete activity, undertaken by highly skilled professionals on behalf of their colleagues.

Data warehousing 2020 style
Wondering what the data warehouse of the future will look like? Think global, multi-cloud capable and vendor managed. Data migration – from both inhouse repositories and other clouds – will be simple and swift and navigation a straightforward matter for all users, not just for those with a background in the data sphere.

Similarly, patching and upgrades will be the remit of vendors rather than users; an activity which occurs automatically in the background, rather than popping periodically onto the IT team’s To Do list.

Tomorrow’s data warehouses won’t just be a cinch to own and operate – they’ll be fast. Very fast. Data streaming and processing advances are increasingly allowing organisations to extract insights from information gathered five minutes ago, rather than five weeks or five months. Being able to base commercial decisions on current rather than historic information will allow enterprises to anticipate future needs and wants more precisely and deliver products and services to suit.

Moving with the times
It’s often said that change is the only constant and, in 2020, Australia and New Zealand’s commercial landscape is evolving far more rapidly than once it did. Data analytics can help businesses make better decisions; ones which will enable them to keep up and compete, in the decade to come.

Data warehousing solutions which make extracting actionable insights easy are an essential piece of the technology puzzle and judicious investment in this space is likely to generate very real returns.

ABOUT PETER O’CONNOR//
Peter O’Connor is vice president, Asia Pacific and Japan for Snowflake.

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Why any cloud migration strategy should start with the data warehouse

Jennene Kelly — Wed, 02 May 2018 23:34:19 +0000

Interestingly, the best place to start is with the enterprise data warehouse (EDW). In many cases, this is the fastest and most risk-free path, with additional potential to increase revenue and position the business for future growth. Indeed, with data volumes growing at exponential rates, it’s not a matter of if you use the cloud to manage your enterprise data, but when.

Segmenting your IT infrastructure
Before setting out on a cloud migration strategy, it is worth taking some time to segment the IT infrastructure currently supporting the business. There are five categories to consider and their associated level of migration risk:

Customer-facing applications: These applications are at the heart of any business. If something goes wrong, business is lost, revenues rapidly decline and people potentially lose their jobs. Risk = HIGH
Internal applications: These include everything from email and CRM systems to payroll and general ledger. Each staff member relies on at least one of these services. Therefore, careful analysis must be done on integration points to ensure disruptions don’t occur during a migration to the cloud. Risk = HIGH
Desktop/laptop OS and applications: There are a wide variety of ways in which these applications can be migrated to a cloud platform. Getting it right is vital to ensure day-to-day operations continue as normal. Risk = HIGH
Operations monitoring and alerting: If the business has a network operation centre (NOC) in place, it will be integrated with virtually every application in use. Moving the NOC to the cloud could be a large and complex step. Risk = HIGH
Reporting and analytics: While these applications play an important role within a business, having a minor period of disruption is unlikely to constitute a disaster. Risk = LOW

Start with your data
Beginning a cloud migration project with the organisation’s EDW makes sense for a number of reasons, including:

No disruption to the business: Many EDW implementations are not mission critical, as opposed to enterprise applications. Traditional EDWs contain aggregations and are used for doing trend analysis over a period of time to make strategic, rather than tactical decisions. By starting your cloud journey with your EDW, you reduce risk by going to a more flexible architecture while giving the IT team early exposure to working with cloud services.
No disruption for internal users: When moving to the cloud, it’s important to be able to show incremental success and not add unnecessary risk. One option is to keep the existing EDW running in parallel with the new cloud EDW, giving you a built-in, fall-back plan for the early stages.
Lower start-up costs: The start-up costs associated with a cloud-based EDW are a fraction of those associated with an on-premise deployment. Many companies invested millions of dollars years ago on a data warehouse appliance that is now outdated. If they re-invest another huge sum of money, this will delay them getting to the cloud by another four or five years, putting them behind their competition. The cloud offers a pay-as-you-go model, allowing you to pay for what you use when you use it.
Rapid data growth: Data is growing at an exponential rate and many organisations are finding their EDW is unable to cope. If you’re considering changing infrastructure platforms, it’s best to select tools that were built for today’s modern data challenges instead of legacy-based architectures. Moving to the cloud also gives the opportunity to consolidate operations and streamline business processes.
Enable new capabilities: There are some new analytic paradigms happening in the cloud such as machine learning and AI. Cloud-based platforms allow a business to work with both detailed and aggregated data at scales never imaged. It’s possible to run a complex analytics job with a 256-node Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) cluster for an hour, and then shut it down. Such flexibility delivers real business value.

As with any infrastructure move, the business benefits have to be clear enough that any reluctance to change can be overcome. The beauty of cloud adoption is that it’s easy to start small and scale without risking a huge investment up front.

Every business needs to see some proof before committing time and resources to move anything to the cloud and the EDW is a perfect candidate. Consider how you could begin your move to the cloud using this strategy.

ABOUT PETER O’CONNOR//

Peter O’Connor is the Vice President Sales APJ at Snowflake Computing, based in Sydney, Australia.

The post Why any cloud migration strategy should start with the data warehouse appeared first on iStart leading the way to smarter technology investment..