3 Things You Need to Make Big Data a Game-Changer in 2014

Big Data and analytics have been gaining momentum for the past few years, so the question in 2014 is: Why is this year going to be the most important year for data? What’s different?

The answer is that companies are now not only collecting larger quantities of data, but they are finding better ways to leverage that data. The real opportunity with Big Data is in how it lets us reframe the questions we ask about that data.

Previously, we asked big-picture questions, such as “How does this trend relate to past trends?” Now, data concerns are becoming more specific. Today, we can ask questions like:

• “What’s the relationship between website traffic and North American seasons?”
• “How can we boost traffic in our off seasons?”
• “What human and technology resources do we need to deal with increased traffic?”

We can make better decisions based on our answers, and we can watch the data in real time to see how our decisions affect change in our organizations.

Today’s sophisticated Big Data analysis applications are giving companies easier access to information. We have access to technology that compresses huge amounts of data so that we can store more data and retrieve it faster. But there are also many other ways to ensure your infrastructure can support high volume and dynamic interactions with data:

• Capacity — As you take sources of substantial data and move them, there is a huge demand for bandwidth. Internet and Ethernet products from tw telecom have the capacity to enable that transfer. In addition, features like Dynamic Capacity give you immediate access to more bandwidth as need increases.
• Visibility — Nothing ruins your day like getting to the end of a long, critical process and finding out it didn’t execute properly. With some data migration processes taking days or even weeks, you want to ensure the processes are operating as anticipated. The Enhanced Management feature in tw telecom’s Intelligent Network lets you monitor transfers and other processes as they happen, giving you the ability to quickly rule out network problems or take action as needed.
• Reliability/Availability — As the significance of data changes, reliability becomes more important than ever. To use Big Data, you must have secure, consistent, reliable access to the platform. For this, you’re going to need a network — and a network partner — you can trust.

tw telecom is exploring Big Data possibilities for our own markets, so we understand the challenges and why it’s so important to our customers. In 2014, we’ll work with you to ensure you’re utilizing data as efficiently as possible.

VIEW THE ORIGINAL POST ON THE TWTELECOM WEBSITE

Ed Finnegan, Director of Database Administration, keeps tw telecom’s own data analysis initiatives on track to help us deliver a superior experience for our customers.