I keep getting asked "Why is Spark so popular?"  My view is it comes down to addressing Four  major requirements :

(1) Easy access to the right data - spark abstracts a lot of complexities when accessing data and handles it in a uniform way using Resilient Distributed Data Sets and DataFrames - more on this in other blogs.  It can access local and remote data - depends on how critical performance is.

(2) Cognitive capabilities - the machine learning capabilities enables Spark to…

I have pondered this concept of "digital business" for sometime.  So I approached Gartner analyst Donald Feinberg recently.  He has agreed to present his view of what it means on an upcoming webcast on July 28.  In summary, the Internet of Things, smart connected devices, mobile are driving a continuous information proliferation. While these forces might represent opportunity, chaos and potential threat simultaneously, a digital business will have the ability to spot and exploit…

Any body watch the the launch of the IBM z13?  Wow - what and incredible piece of technology.  I blogged earlier back in December on mobile and analytics colliding.  It really has created a new tipping point in the industry.  Mobile iss driving business analytics to real time and analytics are gaining more insight from the tidal wave of mobile data and transactions that are being…

How many dimensions are there to analyzing data?  Strange question?  Sit tight.....

When we analyze data we look for insights - meanings, patterns, correlation of events that might help us identify and lower risks - similarly with costs - or we might look for opportunities to increase market share, revenue and profit. We might want to understand what happened in the past and why; run what-if scenarios or try to predict what might happen next with degrees of confidence.  We may want to…

Isn’t that the mantra of organizations wanting answers and insights?  IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator gives you the answers you need 2000 times faster. As part of your analytics infrastructure Accelerator helps transform your computing platform into a uber-efficient hybrid transactional and analytics processing solution. Simply plug it into your infrastructure and without any user intervention or changes to your existing systems, answers to the most complex queries are slashed from hours to…

Let me put this the number of 2000 in perspective. Imagine arriving at your destination 2000 times faster.  Think how that might revolutionize your daily life

Business agility has never been so crucial to winning in the market place. Organizations are on a quest for more insight fast than ever before - to help detect and prevent fraud in near real time – to identify and make an offer to a customer while they’re in a store based on previous browsing history and geographic…

There they sit - in the restaurant a family together - but apart. Heads down in their virtual and social worlds engrossed on their mobile devices.  Food arrives and they're back to the physical world.  And all the time - organizations are watching, collecting data on them.

Why is mobile such a phenomenon?  These devices are always on. We visit 120 screens a day on our mobile devices - checking things, socializing, purchasing on line.  To businesses - mobile adds 2 new important…

There is so much focus around big data but the truth be known that the vast majority of data used in big data projects reside in databases such as DB2.  Transactional systems form the back bone of data warehouses from which business analytics solutions analyze information.  But who has the best solutions, what requirements should a customer look for in a solution and vendor?

Watch the highlights from "Transforming big data into insights" : An independent consultant’s perspective"…

Just register for the Jun 24 2014 webcast "Turning big data into trusted insights"  http://bit.ly/QlXOlG
#bigdata #analytics #insight #intelligence #DB2 #DB2zOS #hadoop #CICS

Join us for a complimentary webcast led by guest speaker Mike Ferguson, an independent consultant, analyst and founder of Intelligent Business Strategies. Wondering what to look for in a vendor when it comes to…

A couple on months ago I decided it was time to update my router so I started searching on the web.  I saw the latest wireless specs were 802.11 ac. So I found a few routers started comparing their capabilities against my list of needs (coverage and range, reliability, management, speed, cloud enabled, media server enabled, auto failover to second ISP... and so on.  After I narrowed it down to 5 or 6 models, I started looking at reviews on Amazon, CNET, Trustedreviews, etc and weeded out the…