Analyst Perspectives

I have previously explained how increased enterprise focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and agentic AI is a forcing function for enterprises to take long-overdue steps to improve data management and data governance. Data is integral to AI: large volumes of data are required to train models, while data freshness is important for inferencing in interactive applications and data quality is...

We live in an era of uncertainty, not unpredictability. Managing in uncertain times is always difficult, but tools are available to improve the odds for success by making it easier and faster to plan for contingencies and scenarios. Software makes it possible to manage ahead of any future event, connecting the tactical trees to the strategic forest. The purpose of planning is not just to create a...

Ventana Research recently announced its 2024 Market Agenda for Analytics and Data, continuing the guidance we have offered for two decades to help enterprises derive optimal value and improve business outcomes.

As articulated in Ventana Research’s Data Platforms Buyer’s Guide and DataOps Buyer’s Guide research, the combination of cloud computing and advanced analytics has lowered the cost of storing and processing large volumes of data, accelerating the emergence of new data platform and data operations products that enable organizations to gain operational efficiency and competitive advantage. The...

The phrase ‘big data’ may have largely gone out of fashion, but the concept of storing and processing all relevant data continues to be important for enterprises seeking to be more data-driven. Doing so requires analytic data platforms capable of storing and processing data in multiple formats and data models. This will be an important focus for the forthcoming Data Platforms Buyer’s Guide 2024. 

I recently discussed how fashion has a surprisingly significant role to play in the data market as various architectural approaches to data storage and processing take turns enjoying a phase in the limelight. Pendulum swing is a theory of fashion that describes the periodic movement of trends between two extremes, such as short and long hemlines or skinny and baggy/flared trousers. Pendulum swing...

I previously described how Oracle had positioned its database portfolio to address any and all data platform requirements. The caveat to that statement at the time was that any organization wanting to take advantage of the company’s flagship Oracle Autonomous Database could only do so using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) cloud computing service, their own datacenter or a hybrid cloud...

I recently articulated some of the reasons why IT teams can fail to deliver on the business requirements for data and analytics projects. This is an age-old and multifaceted problem that is not easily solved. Organizations have a role to play in alleviating the issue by ensuring that their business processes and project planning support a collaborative approach in which business and IT...

I previously described how Databricks had positioned its Lakehouse Platform as the basis for data engineering, data science and data warehousing. The lakehouse design pattern provides a flexible environment for storing and processing data from multiple enterprise applications and workloads for multiple use cases. I assert that by 2025, 8 in 10 current data lake adopters will invest in data...

The data platforms market may appear to have little or nothing to do with haute couture, but it is one of the data sectors most strongly influenced by the fickle finger of fashion. In recent years, various architectural approaches to data storage and processing have enjoyed a phase in the limelight, including data warehouse, data mart, data hub, data lake, cloud data warehouse, object storage,...

Despite a focus on being data-driven, many organizations find that data and analytics projects fail to deliver on expectations. These initiatives can underwhelm for many reasons, because success requires a delicate balance of people, processes, information and technology. Small deviations from perfection in any of those factors can send projects off the rails.

I have written before about the rising popularity of the data fabric approach for managing and governing data spread across distributed environments comprised of multiple data centers, systems and applications. I assert that by 2025, more than 6 in 10 organizations will adopt data fabric technologies to facilitate the management and processing of data across multiple data platforms and cloud...

At one point, analytics and business intelligence were considered non-mission critical activities. One of the primary concerns in designing analytics systems was to ensure they didn’t interfere with or draw computing resources away from operational systems. But today, analytical systems are integral to many aspects of operations. More than 9 in 10 participants in our Analytics and Data Benchmark...

Organizations today have an ever-increasing appetite for platforms that improve the speed and efficiency of data analytics and business intelligence (BI). The ability to quickly process data enables organizations to make well-informed decisions in real time. This agile approach to data processing is crucial for staying ahead in today's competitive landscape. With the rising need for data-driven...

Despite best intentions, many organizations still struggle with some fundamental aspects of data processing and analytics. Taking data from operational applications and making it available for analysis is a first step, but data management remains a perennial challenge. Data movement and transformation difficulties can lead to delays and data quality problems that prevent organizations from...

Maintaining data quality and trust is a perennial data management challenge, often preventing organizations from operating at the speed of business. Recent years have seen the emergence of data observability as a category of DataOps focused on monitoring the quality and reliability of data used for analytics and governance projects and associated data pipelines. There is clear overlap with data...

Organizations increasingly rely on real-time analytics to make informed decisions and stay competitive in today’s data-driven business landscape. As the complexity of data grows with the continuous addition of diverse sources, customers and workers alike expect real-time responsiveness. Accelerated query performance is crucial to process and extract valuable insights from data in a timely manner....

Data fabric has grown in popularity as organizations struggle to manage data spread across multiple data centers, systems and applications. By providing a technology-driven approach to automating data management and governance across distributed environments, data fabric is attractive to organizations seeking to simplify and standardize data management. I assert that by 2025, more than 6 in 10...

The Office of Finance can be compared to a numbers factory where the main raw material, data, is transformed into financial statements, management accounting, analyses, forecasts, budgets, regulatory filings, tax returns and all kinds of reports. Data is the strategic raw material of the finance and accounting department. It is the key ingredient in every sale and purchase as well as every...

The data and analytics sector rightly places great importance on data quality: Almost two-thirds (64%) of participants in Ventana Research’s Analytics and Data Benchmark Research cite reviewing data for quality and consistency issues as the most time-consuming task in analyzing data. Data and analytics vendors would not recommend that customers use tools known to have data quality problems. It is...

Master data management may not attract the same level of excitement as fashionable topics such as DataOps or Data Platforms, but it remains one of the most significant aspects of an organization’s strategic approach to data management. Having trust in data is critical to the ability of an organization to make data-driven business decisions. Along with data quality, MDM enables organizations to...

As engagement with customers, suppliers and partners is increasingly conducted through digital channels, ensuring that infrastructure and applications are performing as expected is not just important but mission critical. My colleague, David Menninger, recently explained the increasing importance of observability to enable organizations to ensure that their systems and applications are operating...

To execute more data-driven business strategies, organizations need linked and comprehensive data that is available in real time. By consistently managing data across siloed systems and ensuring that data definitions are agreed and current, organizations can overcome the challenges presented by data being distributed across an increasingly disparate range of applications and data-processing...

Data Operations (DataOps) has been part of the lexicon of the data market for almost a decade, with the term used to describe products, practices and processes designed to support agile and continuous delivery of data analytics. DataOps takes inspiration from DevOps, which describes a set of tools, practices and philosophy used to support the continuous delivery of software applications in the...

As data continues to grow and evolve, organizations seek better tools and technologies to employ data faster and more efficiently. Finding and managing data remains a perennial challenge for most organizations, and is exacerbated by increasing volumes of data and an expanding array of data formats. At the same time, organizations must comply with a growing list of national and regional rules and...

I have previously written about the importance of data democratization as a key element of a data-driven agenda. Removing barriers that prevent or delay users from gaining access to data enables it to be treated as a product that is generated and consumed, either internally by employees or externally by partners and customers. This is particularly important for organizations adopting the data mesh

Now more than ever, effective data management is crucial to enable decision-makers to better assess information and take calculated actions. It is also important to keep up with the latest trends and technologies to derive higher value from data and analytics and maintain a competitive edge in the market. However, every organization faces challenges with data management and analytics. And as...

Organizations require faster analytics to continuously improve business operations and stay competitive in today’s market. However, many struggle with slow analytics due to a variety of factors such as slow databases, insufficient data storage capacity, poor data quality, lack of proper data cleansing and inadequate IT infrastructure. Challenges such as data silos can also decrease operational...

We live in a time of uncertainty, not unpredictability. Managing an organization in uncertain times is always hard, but tools are available to improve the odds for success by making it easier and faster to plan for contingencies and scenarios. Software makes it possible to quickly consider the impact of a range of events or assumptions and devise a set of plans to deal with them. Dedicated...

The market for data and analytics products is constantly evolving, with the emergence of new approaches to data persistence, data processing and analytics. This enables organizations to constantly adapt data analytics architecture in response to emerging functional capabilities and business requirements. It can, however, also be a challenge. Investments in data platforms cannot be constantly...

Data observability was a hot topic in 2022 and looks likely to be a continued area of focus for innovation in 2023 and beyond. As I have previously described, data observability software is designed to automate the monitoring of data platforms and data pipelines, as well as the detection and remediation of data quality and data reliability issues. There has been a Cambrian explosion of data...

Organizations across various industries collect multiple types of data from disparate systems to answer key business questions and deliver personalized experiences for customers. The expanding volume of data increases complexity, and data management becomes a challenge if the process is manual and rules-based. There can be numerous siloed, incomplete and outdated data sources that result in...

Despite the emphasis on organizations being more data-driven and making an increasing proportion of business decisions based on data and analytics, it remains the case that some of the most fundamental questions about an organization are difficult to answer using data and analytics. Ostensibly simple questions such as, “how many customers does the organization have?” can be fiendishly difficult...

Ventana Research recently announced its 2023 Market Agenda for Data, continuing the guidance we have offered for two decades to help organizations derive optimal value and improve business outcomes.

Data observability is a hot topic and trend. I have written about the importance of data observability for ensuring healthy data pipelines, and have covered multiple vendors with data observability capabilities, offered both as standalone and part of a larger data engineering system. Data observability software provides an environment that takes advantage of machine learning and DataOps to...

The shift from on-premises server infrastructure to cloud-based and software-as-a-service (SaaS) models has had a profound impact on the data and analytics architecture of many organizations in recent years. More than one-half of participants (59%) in Ventana Research’s Analytics and Data Benchmark research are deploying data and analytics workloads in the cloud, and a further 30% plan to do so....

Ventana Research uses the term “data pantry” to describe a method of data storage (and the technology and process blueprint for its construction) created for a specific set of users and use cases in business-focused software. It’s a pantry because all the data one needs is readily available and easily accessible, with labels that are immediately recognized and understood by the users of the...

Earlier this year, I wrote about the increasing importance of data observability, an emerging product category that takes advantage of machine learning (ML) and Data Operations (DataOps) to automate the monitoring of data used for analytics projects to ensure its quality and lineage. Monitoring the quality and lineage of data is nothing new. Manual tools exist to ensure that it is complete, valid...

Organizations are increasingly utilizing cloud object storage as the foundation for analytic initiatives. There are multiple advantages to this approach, not least of which is enabling organizations to keep higher volumes of data relatively inexpensively, increasing the amount of data queried in analytics initiatives. I assert that by 2024, 6 in ten organizations will use cloud-based technology...

Almost all organizations are investing in data science, or planning to, as they seek to encourage experimentation and exploration to identify new business challenges and opportunities as part of the drive toward creating a more data-driven culture. My colleague, David Menninger, has written about how organizations using artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) report gaining...

If you’ve ever been to London, you are probably familiar with the announcements on the London Underground to “mind the gap” between the trains and the platform. I suggest we also need to mind the gap between data and analytics. These worlds are often disconnected in organizations and, as a result, it limits their effectiveness and agility.

I have previously written about growing interest in the data lakehouse as one of the design patterns for delivering hydroanalytics analysis of data in a data lake. Many organizations have invested in data lakes as a relatively inexpensive way of storing large volumes of data from multiple enterprise applications and workloads, especially semi- and unstructured data that is unsuitable for storing...

I have written recently about the similarities and differences between data mesh and data fabric. The two are potentially complementary. Data mesh is an organizational and cultural approach to data ownership, access and governance. Data fabric is a technical approach to automating data management and data governance in a distributed architecture. There are various definitions of data fabric, but...

In their pursuit to be data-driven, organizations are collecting and managing more data than ever before as they attempt to gain competitive advantage and respond faster to worker and customer demands for more innovative, data-rich applications and personalized experiences. As data is increasingly spread across multiple data centers, clouds and regions, organizations need to manage data on...

I have written a few times in recent months about vendors offering functionality that addresses data orchestration. This is a concept that has been growing in popularity in the past five years amid the rise of Data Operations (DataOps), which describes more agile approaches to data integration and data management. In a nutshell, data orchestration is the process of combining data from multiple...

Ventana Research’s Data Lakes Dynamics Insights research illustrates that while data lakes are fulfilling their promise of enabling organizations to economically store and process large volumes of raw data, data lake environments continue to evolve. Data lakes were initially based primarily on Apache Hadoop deployed on-premises but are now increasingly based on cloud object storage. Adopters are...

I have written before about the continued use of specialist operational and analytic data platforms. Most database products can be used for operational or analytic workloads, and the number of use cases for hybrid data processing is growing. However, a general-purpose database is unlikely to meet the most demanding operational or analytic data platform requirements. Factors including performance,...

A predictive finance department is one that can command technology to be more forward-looking and action-oriented while still fulfilling its core role of handling the financial elements of its organization including accounting, treasury and corporate finance. Beyond just automating rote tasks, technology also facilitates a shift toward becoming a predictive finance organization. Greater amounts...

I have recently written about the organizational and cultural aspects of being data-driven, and the potential advantages data-driven organizations stand to gain by responding faster to worker and customer demands for more innovative, data-rich applications and personalized experiences. I have also explained that data-driven processes require more agile, continuous data processing, with an...

Organizations are collecting data from multiple data sources and a variety of systems to enrich their analytics and business intelligence (BI). But collecting data is only half of the equation. As the data grows, it becomes challenging to find the right data at the right time. Many organizations can’t take full advantage of their data lakes because they don’t know what data actually exists. Also,...

The data catalog has become an integral component of organizational data strategies over the past decade, serving as a conduit for good data governance and facilitating self-service analytics initiatives. The data catalog has become so important, in fact, that it is easy to forget that just 10 years ago it did not exist in terms of a standalone product category. Metadata-based data management...

The analytics and business intelligence market landscape continues to grow as more organizations seek robust tools and capabilities to visualize and better understand data. BI systems are used to perform data analysis, identify market trends and opportunities and streamline business processes. They can collect and combine data from internal and external systems to present a holistic view.

I have recently written about the importance of healthy data pipelines to ensure data is integrated and processed in the sequence required to generate business intelligence, and the need for data pipelines to be agile in the context of real-time data processing requirements. Data engineers, who are responsible for monitoring, managing and maintaining data pipelines, are under increasing pressure...

We’ve recently published our latest Benchmark Research on Data Governance and it’s fair to say, “you’ve come a long way, baby.” Many of you reading this weren’t around when that phrase was introduced in 1968 to promote Virginia Slims cigarettes, but you may have heard the phrase because it went on to become a part of popular culture. We’ve learned a lot about cigarettes since then, and we’ve...

A few years ago – somewhat tongue in cheek – I began using the term “data pantry” to describe a type of data store that’s part of a business application platform, created for a specific set of users and use cases. It’s a data pantry because, unlike a general-purpose data store such as a data warehouse, everything the user needs is readily available and easily accessible, with labels that are...

Organizations are continuously increasing the use of analytics and business intelligence to turn data into meaningful and actionable insights. Our Analytics and Data Benchmark Research shows some of the benefits of using analytics: Improved efficiency in business processes, improved communication and gaining a competitive edge in the market top the list. With a unified BI system, organizations...

I’ve never been a fan of talking about semantic models because most of the workforce probably doesn’t understand what they are, or doesn’t recognize them by name. But the findings in our recent Analytics and Data Benchmark Research have changed my mind. The research shows how important a semantic model can be to the success of data and analytics processes. Organizations that have successfully...

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....

The data governance landscape is growing rapidly. Organizations handling vast amounts of data face multiple challenges as more regulations are added to govern sensitive information. Adoption of multi-cloud strategies increases governance concerns with new data sources that are accessed in real time. Our Data Governance Benchmark Research shows that organizations face multiple challenges when...

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) using machine learning (ML) will be the single most important trend in business software this decade because it can multiply the investment value of such applications and provide vendors an important source of differentiation to achieve a competitive advantage in what are today very mature software categories. I assert that by 2025, almost all Office of...

In this analyst perspective, Dave Menninger takes a look at data lakes. He explains the term “data lake,” describes common use cases and shares his views on some of the latest market trends. He explores the relationship between data warehouses and data lakes and share some of Ventana Research’s findings on the subject. He also provides an assessment of the risks organizations face in working with...

Alteryx Inspire 2019, this year's user conference for Alteryx, drew around 4500 customers, partners, and prospects to Nashville’s Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Tennessee last month. The strong attendance was a reflection of the strong growth Alteryx has experienced over the last year; roughly 50% growth year-over-year. This year's conference focused on Alteryx's evolution from...

Summit 2019, Information Builders' annual user conference, drew about 1000 attendees this year, including customers, partners and prospects all working with Information Builders' technologies. Under new leadership, Summit 2019 showcased the direction Information Builders is moving in the next couple of years.

This year, I attended Informatica World 2019, Informatica's annual user conference. The main focus this year was on the cloud with a heavy does of AI. Under that focus, Informatica's conference emphasized capabilities across six areas (all strong areas for Informatica): data integration, data management, data quality & governance, Master Data Management (MDM), data cataloging, and data security. 

Qonnections 2019 is Qlik's annual user conference. Key news from this year's conference centered on acquisitions of Podium Data and Attunity, along with an expansion of certifications on Google Cloud Platform, AWS, and Azure, with the ability to support Red Hat OpenShift. Many of these announcements were centered on a key theme of a cloud and SaaS-first approach.

Domopalooza 2019 marked the first annual user conference after Domo went public, but the energy, excitement and new feature announcements have not slowed. With thousands in attendance and growing fast, this year's conference focused on five key areas: digitization, real time connectivity, driving insight based actions, applying AI & machine learning, and building applications. All of these...

This year, Teradata rebranded the Teradata users conference from "Partners" to "Analytics Universe", and there is a reason for it. For decades, Teradata has represented the high end of the analytic database, but new innovations and technologies are adding flexibility to Teradata's licensing as they compete. For the full breakdown of Teradata's Analytics Universe 2018, and my analysis of all the...

The use of blockchain distributed ledgers in business processes is now a common theme in many business software vendors’ presentations. The technology has a multitude of potential uses. However, presentations about the opportunities for digital transformation always leave me wondering: How is this magic going to happen? I wonder this because the details about how data flows from point A to point...

Ventana Research uses the term “predictive finance” to describe a forward-looking, action-oriented finance organization that places emphasis on advising its company rather than fulfilling the traditional roles of a transactions processor and reporter. Technology is driving the shift away from the traditional bean-counting role. The cumulative evolution of software advances will substantially...

This has been a dramatic year for Informatica, a major provider of data integration software. In August it was acquired and taken private by Permira funds and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board for about US$5.3 billion. This change was accompanied by shifts in its management. CEO Sohaib Abbasi became chairman and now has left, and many executives were replaced while Anil Chakravathy became CEO...

Organizations today create and collect data at ever faster rates, and this introduces challenges in ensuring that data is not just managed but used in a consistent manner for a range of operational and analytic tasks. This is made more difficult by new data sources whose definitions vary from standard and widely used formats. Making all information available and consistent is essential to support...

When applying information technology to drive better business performance, companies and the systems integrators that assist them often underestimate the importance of organizing data management around processes. For example, companies that do not execute their quote-to-cash cycle as an end-to-end process often experience a related set of issues in their sales, marketing, operations, accounting...

At the Informatica World 2014 conference, the company known for its data integration software unveiled the Intelligent Data Platform. In the last three years Informatica has expanded beyond data integration and now has a broad software portfolio that facilitates information management within the enterprise and through cloud computing. The Intelligent Data Platform forms a framework for its...

Many businesses are close to being overwhelmed by the unceasing growth of data they must process and analyze to find insights that can improve their operations and results. To manage this big data they find a rapidly expanding portfolio of technology products. A significant vendor in this market is SAS Institute. I recently attended the company’s annual analyst summit, Inside Intelligence 2014...

One of the potential benefits of cloud computing to access business applications and data is its potential to improve the situational awareness of executives and managers. By this I mean their understanding of what’s going on outside their company in addition to what’s happening within it. Today people have access to a trove of information about their own company, which is the result of decades...

Informatica and Exterro have announced a partnership in the market for discovery of electronic data and documents (known as e-discovery). Exterro has made its reputation in e-discovery workflow and legal holds management while Informatica is a leader in data integration that our Value Index finds as the top and Hot rated provider. The partnership is designed to provide users of Exterro’s Fusion...

As a new generation of business professionals embraces a new generation of technology, the line between people and their tools begins to blur. This shift comes as organizations become flatter and leaner and roles, context and responsibilities become intertwined. These changes have introduced faster and easier ways to bring information to users, in a context that makes it quicker to collaborate,...

Cisco Systems has announced its intent to acquire Composite Software, which provides data virtualization to help IT departments interconnect data and systems; the purchase is scheduled to complete in early August. Cisco of course is known for its ability to interconnect just about anything with its networking technology; this acquisition will help it connect data better across networks. Over the...

I recently attended Vision 2013, IBM’s annual conference for users of its financial governance, risk management and sales performance management software. These three groups have little in common operationally, but they share software infrastructure needs and basic supporting software components such as reporting and analytics. Moreover, while some other major vendors’ user group meetings...

I recently attended the annual Informatica analyst summit to get the latest on that company’s strategy and plans. The data integration provider offers a portfolio of information management software that supports today’s big data and information optimization needs. Informatica is busy making changes in its presentation to the market and its marketing and sales efforts. New executives, including...

Two key themes that emerged from Larry Ellison’s Sunday night keynote at this year’s Oracle OpenWorld were faster processing speed and cheaper storage. An underlying purpose to these themes was to assert the importance of Oracle’s strategic vertical integration of hardware and software with the acquisitions of Sun. I try to view technology keynotes like this from the perspective of a practical...

Our recent benchmark research on information management uncovered some startling facts about the level of technology adoption necessary for efficient information-centric organizations. Chief information officers (CIO) are responsible for the availability of information to their businesses in a consistent and timely basis, but in most organizations, information management is seen as just a...

There has been a spate of acquisitions in the data warehousing and business analytics market in recent months. In May 2010 SAP announced an agreement to acquire Sybase, primarily for its mobility technology and had already been advancing its efforts with SAP HANA and BI. In July 2010 EMC agreed to acquire data warehouse appliance vendor Greenplum. In September 2010 IBM countered by acquiring...

This is the second in a series of posts on the architectures of analytic databases. The first post addressed massively parallel processing (MPP) and database technology. In this post, we’ll look at columnar database technology. Given the recent announcement of HP’s plan to acquire Vertica, a columnar database vendor, there is likely to be even more interest in columnar database technology, how it...

It’s clear that now we are living in the era of big data. The stores of data on which modern businesses rely are already vast and increasing at an unprecedented pace. Organizations are capturing data at deeper levels of detail and keeping more history than they ever have before. Managing all of the data is thus emerging as one of the key challenges of the new decade.

Kognitio announced the addition of MultiDimensional eXpressions (MDX) capabilities for its WX2 product line. John Thompson, CEO of U.S. operations, and Sean Jackson, VP of marketing, shared some of the details with me recently. I find the marriage of MDX and large-scale data both technically challenging and potentially valuable to the market.

Last week I attended MicroStrategy World 2011 in Las Vegas, the North American version of the business intelligence (BI) vendor’s annual user conference. The event was well attended, and the company claimed attendance was up 40% over last year. The purpose of the post is to recap the announcements made, highlight the areas where MicroStrategy is making investments and comment on the overall...

Open source business intelligence (BI) software vendor Jaspersoft recently announced general availability of its flagship product Jaspersoft 4 and earlier this week announced a new reporting project that provides data connectors to a variety of large-scale data sources.

This is the first in a series of posts on the architectures of analytic databases. This is relational database technology that has been “supercharged” in some way to handle large amounts of data such as typical data warehouse workloads. The series will examine massively parallel processing (MPP), columnar databases, appliances and in-database analytics. Our purpose is to help those evaluating...