ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

Data and Analytics Processes: Can We Get Personal?

Posted by David Menninger on 24 May 2022

There is a fundamental flaw in information technology, or at least in the way it is most commonly delivered. Most technology systems are developed under the assumption that all people will use the system primarily in the same way. Sure, there are some options built in — perhaps the same action can be initiated by either clicking on a button, selecting a menu item or invoking a keyboard short-cut.... Read More

Topics: Business Intelligence, Data Management, natural language processing, data operations, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning

Denodo Advancing Data Virtualization in the Cloud

Posted by David Menninger on 28 April 2022

Organizations have been using data virtualization to collect and integrate data from various sources, and in different formats, to create a single source of truth without redundancy or overlap, thus improving and accelerating decision-making giving them a competitive advantage in the market. Our research shows that data virtualization is popular in the big data world. One-quarter (27%) of... Read More

Topics: embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Streaming Analytics, AI and Machine Learning

Real-Time Data Processing Requires More Agile Data Pipelines

Posted by Matt Aslett on 26 April 2022

I recently wrote about the importance of data pipelines and the role they play in transporting data between the stages of data processing and analytics. Healthy data pipelines are necessary to ensure data is integrated and processed in the sequence required to generate business intelligence. The concept of the data pipeline is nothing new of course, but it is becoming increasingly important as... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Governance, Data Integration, Data, Digital Technology, Digital transformation, data lakes, data operations, Streaming Data Events, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning

Starburst Accelerates Analysis of Distributed Data

Posted by Matt Aslett on 12 April 2022

I recently described the growing level of interest in data mesh which provides an organizational and cultural approach to data ownership, access and governance that facilitates distributed data processing. As I stated in my Analyst Perspective, data mesh is not a product that can be acquired or even a technical architecture that can be built. Adopting the data mesh approach is dependent on people... Read More

Topics: Business Continuity, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Governance, Data Integration, Data, Digital Technology, data lakes, Analytics and Data

The Benefits of Data Mesh Extend to Organizational and Cultural Change

Posted by Matt Aslett on 29 March 2022

Data mesh is the latest trend to grip the data and analytics sector. The term has been rapidly adopted by numerous vendors — as well as a growing number of organizations —as a means of embracing distributed data processing. Understanding and adopting data mesh remains a challenge, however. Data mesh is not a product that can be acquired, or even a technical architecture that can be built. It is... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Governance, Data Integration, Data, Digital Technology, Digital transformation, data lakes, data operations, Streaming Data Events, Analytics and Data

Working Across the Aisle in Analytics: Involving IT and LOB

Posted by David Menninger on 23 March 2022

For years, maybe decades, we have heard about the struggles between IT and line-of-business functions. In this perspective, we will look at some of the data from our Analytics and Data Benchmark Research about the roles of IT and line-of-business teams in analytics and data processes. We will also look at some of the disconnects between these two groups. And, by looking at how organizations are... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data, Digital Technology, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning

Yellowbrick Paves the Way to Distributed Cloud

Posted by Matt Aslett on 22 March 2022

Despite widespread and increasing use of the cloud for data and analytics workloads, it has become clear in recent years that, for most organizations, a proportion of data-processing workloads will remain on-premises in centralized data centers or distributed-edge processing infrastructure. As we recently noted, as compute and storage are distributed across a hybrid and multi-cloud architecture,... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Governance, Data, data operations, AI and Machine Learning

Looker Simplifies Business Intelligence in the Cloud

Posted by David Menninger on 17 March 2022

Organizations face various challenges with analytics and business intelligence processes, including data curation and modeling across disparate sources and data warehouses, maintaining data quality and ensuring security and governance. Traditional processes are slow when transforming large and diverse datasets into something which is easily consumable in BI. And, it can take days or weeks to... Read More

Topics: Big Data, Analytics, Business Intelligence

Incorta Unifies Data Processing to Accelerate Analytics & BI

Posted by Matt Aslett on 16 February 2022

As I stated when joining Ventana Research, the socioeconomic impacts of the pandemic and its aftereffects have highlighted more than ever the differences between organizations that can turn data into insights and are agile enough to act upon it and those that are incapable of seeing or responding to the need for change. Data-driven organizations stand to gain competitive advantage, responding... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Integration, Data, data lakes, data operations, Streaming Data Events, AI and Machine Learning

Hybrid Data Processing Use Cases

Posted by Matt Aslett on 11 February 2022

I recently described how the data platforms landscape will remain divided between analytic and operational workloads for the foreseeable future. Analytic data platforms are designed to store, manage, process and analyze data, enabling organizations to maximize data to operate with greater efficiency, while operational data platforms are designed to store, manage and process data to support... Read More

Topics: embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data, Digital Technology, Streaming Data Events, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning

AtScale Universal Semantic Layer Democratizes and Scales Analytics

Posted by David Menninger on 10 February 2022

Organizations of all sizes are dealing with exponentially increasing data volume and data sources, which creates challenges such as siloed information, increased technical complexities across various systems and slow reporting of important business metrics. Migrating to the cloud does not solve the problems associated with performing analytics and business intelligence on data stored in disparate... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Integration, Data, data lakes, data operations, Streaming Analytics, AI and Machine Learning

The Office of Finance Market Agenda for 2022: Effectiveness and Profits

Posted by Robert Kugel on 09 February 2022

Ventana Research recently announced its 2022 Market Agenda for the Office of Finance, continuing the guidance we have offered since 2003 on the practical use of technology for the finance and accounting department. Our insights and best practices aim to enable organizations to operate with agility and resiliency, improving performance and delivering greater value as a strategic partner. We craft... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Revenue, blockchain, robotic finance, Predictive Planning, AI and Machine Learning, lease and tax accounting

The 2022 Market Agenda for Analytics: Enabling Actions and Effective Insights

Posted by David Menninger on 03 February 2022

Ventana Research recently announced its 2022 Market Agenda for Analytics, continuing the guidance we have offered for nearly two decades to help organizations derive optimal value from technology investments in order to improve business outcomes. It has been exciting to follow innovations in the analytics market, but for businesses, it can be challenging to stay on top of these changes and find... Read More

Topics: embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Digital Technology, natural language processing, Process Mining, Collaborative & Conversational Computing, Analytics and Data

ThoughtSpot Enables Simpler Analytics with AI and NLP

Posted by David Menninger on 21 January 2022

Organizations today have huge volumes of data across various cloud and on-premises systems which keep growing by the second. To derive value from this data, organizations must query the data regularly and share insights with relevant teams and departments. Automating this process using natural language processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) enables... Read More

Topics: embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Integration, Data, natural language processing, data lakes, data operations, AI and Machine Learning

AWS Cloud Data Platform Services Expand Workload Placement Options

Posted by Matt Aslett on 19 January 2022

Few trends have had a bigger impact on the data platforms landscape than the emergence of cloud computing. The adoption of cloud computing infrastructure as an alternative to on-premises datacenters has resulted in significant workloads being migrated to the cloud, displacing traditional server and storage vendors. Almost one-half (49%) of respondents to Ventana Research’s Analytics and Data... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Governance, Data Integration, Data

Reltio Connects MDM in the Cloud for Business

Posted by David Menninger on 11 January 2022

Organizations today are working with multiple applications and systems, including enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM) and other systems, where data can easily become fragmented and siloed. And as the organization increases its data sources and adds more systems and custom applications, it becomes challenging to manage the data... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Governance, Data Integration, Data, Digital Technology, Analytics and Data

Hydroanalytic Data Platforms Power Data Lakes’ Strategic Value

Posted by Matt Aslett on 23 December 2021

Data lakes have enormous potential as a source of business intelligence. However, many early adopters of data lakes have found that simply storing large amounts of data in a data lake environment is not enough to generate business intelligence from that data. Similarly, lakes and reservoirs have enormous potential as sources of energy. However, simply storing large amounts of water in a lake is... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Data Governance, Data Integration, Data, Digital Technology, data lakes, data operations, AI and Machine Learning

Talend Data Fabric Simplifies Data Life Cycle Management

Posted by David Menninger on 16 November 2021

Talend is a data integration and management software company that offers applications for cloud computing, big data integration, application integration, data quality and master data management. The platform enables personnel to work with relational databases, Apache Hadoop, Spark and NoSQL databases for cloud or on-premises jobs. Talend data integration software offers an open and scalable... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Data Governance, Data Preparation, Information Management, Data, Digital Technology, data lakes, AI and Machine Learning

What Makes a Metric a KPI?

Posted by David Menninger on 09 November 2021

How does your organization define and display its metrics? I believe many organizations are not defining and displaying metrics in a way that benefits them most. If an organization goes through the trouble of measuring and reporting on a metric, the analysis ought to include all the information needed to evaluate that metric effectively. A number, by itself, does not provide any indication of... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Internet of Things, Data, Digital Technology, Streaming Analytics, AI and Machine Learning

Databricks Lakehouse Platform Streamlines Big Data Processing

Posted by David Menninger on 26 October 2021

Databricks is a data engineering and analytics cloud platform built on top of Apache Spark that processes and transforms huge volumes of data and offers data exploration capabilities through machine learning models. It can enable data engineers, data scientists, analysts and other workers to process big data and unify analytics through a single interface. The platform supports streaming data, SQL... Read More

Topics: embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Data Governance, Information Management, Data, data lakes, AI and Machine Learning