Big data is rapidly moving into the mainstream of business.The ability to sift through mountains of structured and unstructured data andput it to maximum use increasingly separates industry leaders from laggards.
?Companies not only have to capture and store data they mustbe able to render it and make sense out of it in the context of businessissues,? says Gary Curtis, chief technology strategist at Accenture. ?Becauseof widely proliferating media types and numerous ways of using data, thechallenge is significant.?
A recent survey conducted by LogLogic, an enterprise-classlog management infrastructure and analysis provider, found the amount of ITdata organizations are producing is growing exponentially?with 62 percentproducing more than 1 terabyte and up to 1 petabyte of data.
Unfortunately, a serious lack of understanding exists aboutbig data. A hefty 38 percent of respondents?comprised of more than 200 securityand IT operations professionals?said they lack a clear understanding of whatbig data is. In addition, 59 percent do not have the tools to manage data fromtheir IT systems and 72 percent are unable to manage data in the cloud.
?These survey results show that organizations collect manyterabytes of IT data. However, they are not taking advantage of theintelligence this data contains,? says Mandeep Khera, CMO for LogLogic. He saysthat it?s akin to ?holding the key to a safe but never opening it?companieshave access to valuable insights but have not taken the steps to unlock theseinsights.?
In fact, many organizations rely on antiquated and disparatemethods, processes and tools to try to manage all the data. The widespread use ofspreadsheets contributes to the problem. A central viewpoint as well assophisticated analytics capabilities are critical to making sense out of bigdata.
?Without a central viewpoint with intelligent analysis, orgsare unable to derive actionable insights,? Khera says. ?While a lot of peopleare talking about big data and cloud log data, very few of them understand whatit takes to manage it. Companies who do so will gain a competitive advantage. ?
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