Big Data London
November 13th 2019
Whilst it’s hugely entertaining and illuminating to visit these large exhibitions in London, it can be hard sometimes to know where to start. Hungry for new knowledge, exciting new technologies, innovations that make you go ‘wow!’ - it can be tempting to try to absorb anything and everything. This time however I looked at what was on offer and tried to match it with some of the problems I know some of our customers are experiencing.
ETL and Talend
I came across Talend when chatting to an old customer about the challenges of getting good reliable data into a format to be able to report on. The issue boils down to finding the path of least resistance. If you don’t have access to a responsive, knowledgeable IT department (or a friendly reporting partner like us) then you need a tool that can be picked up easily and provides a manageable learning curve.
If you’re keen to review your ETL requirements, talk to us - we can advise the best tools.
A USP for Tableau?
There are many ways to report on data, and the tool you pick may well be determined by whether you need a simple dashboard or something that enables more significant data analysis. What made the Tableau reporting tools stand out was the ability to see the lineage of the data being reported on. Past experience tells me this can be very important to some audiences, who want to be sure that the results, which can be different depending on who is doing the analysis, come from the same originating source.
Reporting publication challenges for large audiences
Finally, I’m starting to see the reporting tool vendors coming to realise that potential audiences for report output can number in the thousands. They don’t need to slice and dice, they just want to see some key performance indicators for their patch. When a license to simply view costs anything more than a few pence this can derail deployment and start some creative solutions to the problem. It will be interesting to see how this requirement drives future licensing models.
Big Data London revealed some of the current challenges - and opportunities – created by the proliferation of ‘big data’. If you want to talk more about your business data issues, just call on 01635 889223 or email Nick.Barnes@changepp.co.uk.
