At IBM's 2011 Business Analytics Forum, IBM unveiled new software that brings the power of managing and analyzing big data to the workplace. The new offerings span a variety of big data and business analytics technologies across multiple platforms from mobile devices to the data center to IBM's SmartCloud, enabling employees from any department inside an organization to explore unstructured data such as Twitter feeds, Facebook posts, weather data, log files, genomic data and video, as part of their everyday work experience.
The new offerings include:
- New Hadoop-based analytics software on the cloud
IBM InfoSphere BigInsights on the IBM SmartCloud Enterprise makes big data analytics accessible for any user inside an organization, according to IBM. Like the on-premise version, BigInsights on the cloud analyzes traditional structured data found in databases along with unstructured data - such as text, video, audio, images, social media, click streams, log files, weather data - allowing decision makers to act on it quickly. Bringing big data analytics to the cloud means clients can capture and analyze any data without the need for Hadoop skills, or having to install, run, or maintain hardware and software.
BigInsights on the cloud is available in both basic and enterprise editions with the options of public, private and hybrid cloud deployments. The basic edition is an entry-level offering available at no-charge that helps organizations learn how to do big data analytics including "what-if" scenarios with its BigSheets component. Clients can seamlessly move to the enterprise edition when ready and set up Hadoop clusters in under 30 minutes to start analyzing data. Both versions include a developer sandbox where clients can develop a new generation of business analytics applications complete with tools and a test and development environment.
- New mobile analytics software for iPad users
IBM has also announced expanded mobile device support with IBM Cognos Mobile on the iPad. Available in Apple's iTunes Store at http://bit.ly/r68A04, the software enables mobile workers to take their business analytics on the road whether offline or online, allowing for uninterrupted productivity. iPad users can analyze data about their business including sales, customer, and financial data with reporting, dashboard and scorecards.For a look at the dashboard, click here.
- New predictive analytics software with a mapping feature that can be used across industries
IBM is delivering new software that allows organizations to gain predictive intelligence on geographic data. Organizations can use the software to understand data, analyze trends, forecast, plan, and validate assumptions to drive accurate conclusions.
SPSS Statistics 20.0 software includes a new mapping feature that gives users the ability to add a geographic dimension to analysis and reporting, and allows users to target, forecast, and plan by geographical areas. This mapping feature can be used across industries to analyze data and create statistics for marketing campaign effectiveness, store allocation decisions in retail, to detect crime hot spots, and for student test score assessments. The software comes with views of the United States, countries, continents, and prebuilt map templates where users can quickly populate them with data including geospatial information from ESRI files.
- New software that speeds governance of big data
New IBM InfoSphere Information Server 8.7 software enables integration with big data as both a source and a target for information integration. The performance and parallel engine of Information Server provide the scalability required for big data. Also new in this release is a next-generation connector to Netezza, built for balanced optimization and high performance, and packaged specifically for Netezza implementations, and an operations console to view system usage across all integration jobs, to improve productivity of integration projects. New IBM InfoSphere Master Data Management 10 software unifies IBM's MDM capabilities into a single product. New features include integration with Business Process Management software for MDM-centric business processes, greater connectivity to consuming applications via adaptable service interfaces, and a shared matching engine that maintains the single version of the truth.
IBM also showcased a range of customers using its big data technologies. Danish energy company Vestas Wind Systems is using IBM's big data software to analyze petabytes of weather data to improve wind turbine placement for optimal energy output, resulting in analysis that used to take weeks now being done in under one hour. In addition, advertising agency Ogilvy is using IBM's analytics software for the iPad to help employees assign resources, track utilization rates, and identify new revenue opportunities on the fly.
More information is available on the IBM YouTube Analytics Channel at www.youtube.com/user/ibmbusinessanalytics.
For more information on IBM IOD and Business Analytics Forum 2011, visit: www.ibm.com/software/data/2011-conference.