The world is easily distracted by technology’s bright, shiny objects and big data is no exception. “Find actionable insights” has become the rallying cry for several recent startups focused on Hadoop solutions who are ready to take your hard-earned funds to deliver this capability.
The less-often spoken reality is that the trends being hyped today make a very powerful argument for levels of integration that have never before been necessary. Before Hadoop can do its first map reduce, there needs to be a way to connect to, bring together, and govern a wide variety of data from different sources.
Once Hadoop does its work, there is a critical need for integration to take insights and turn them into actions that need to ripple through organizations in strategic, tactical and operational ways. The importance of integration to big data can’t be overstated. A main driving force behind the need for integration is the massive amount of operational data. Integration allows for deep data analysis, but also important, integration reduces the time to action to gain any real value from data.
Big data is a blanket term, but there are other specific integration needs that are also challenging most organizations:
Mobile Data
Of all the trends in the marketplace, the move to mobile computing brings some of the most challenging integration requirements. Mobile is all about geolocation context that adds a layer of complexity, volatility and volume to integrating data. Mobile is all about the moment and integration needs to serve that need.
Social Data
Social is more than consumer facing and also involves integrating many feeds in ways that allow organizations to understand both customers and partners.
Cloud Data
Cloud computing isn’t as simple as working in the cloud or not. It is about finding and integrating the best pattern of cloud and on-premise that works in a moment. Without integration, cloud doesn’t meet its performance and elasticity promises.
Taking a step back from the hype, many organizations that have been managing enormous volumes, velocity and variety of data will tell you that integration is at the heart of their achievements. They’ll tell you that big data is the mother of all integration stories.
For more, watch these webinars featuring analysts from Forrester Research and TIBCO on integration.
