Looking to 2013 with Suresh Chandrasakaran, Denodo’s SVP of North America

Looking to 2013 with Suresh Chandrasakaran, Denodo’s SVP of North America

Every year-end, I seek out a few conversations on the state of our industry and what the next year will bring.  It helps me stay on top of things and always brings in new ideas.  This year was no exception.  I spoke with Suresh Chandrasakaran, Denodo’s SVP of North America.  Our wide-ranging conversation covered joint interests of big data, mobile, analytics and cloud computing.  Here are some of the points discussed:

Big Data

In what Suresh described as a “maturing”, big data will move beyond possibilities and into reality, which will bring integration to the forefront as a challenge.  We’ll add transactional data, data.gov sites, and logs like “router” logs to the list of big data as well.  Big Data will be thought of in an integrated sense – how to harness it together with traditional databases, operational real-time data and BI stacks.

Mobile Business Intelligence

The proliferation of smart phones and tablets will lead to information access trends:

1. They will be used as better ways to help user find the information they need (i.e. Information as a Service).
2. Users will be able to consume the data in different ways such as search, browse, subscribe as newsfeed/RSS, query, or map/graph, etc.

Analytics

A shift to more real-time and predictive business intelligence is underway.  There is a move to “productize” intelligence and the broadening use of BI to operational and front-line workers.  Self-service will also be more important in the coming year.  The focus is shifting away from storage and towards use/access (e.g. cloud, crowd-sourcing).

In addition, we agreed about a “back to pragmatism” approach, which is a reaction to the sober economic mood.  Multi-year, multi-million new projects are being replaced by hybrid /virtual approaches leveraging existing data and technology.

Cloud Computing

“Cloud critical” in 2013 will see the maturation of cloud interfaces and architectures, which will become more modular, with better APIs and service levels. Also the integration of personal cloud data with social media will be key.