In this Tech Talk Interview with Toolbox, Sharmistha Mallik, Product Marketing Manager of Seagate, talks about how Big Data – structured and unstructured – allows data scientists to evaluate big chunks of information at a faster pace. The core function of Big Data is to uncover hidden patterns, correlations and insights, Sharmistha notes. She discusses the impact of Big Data on storage-based solutions and talks about how Big Data and analytics can help businesses gain a deeper understanding of consumer behaviors and purchase patterns.
With an expertise in predictive analytics and Big Data, Seagate produces high-quality data storage drives. Talking to Toolbox, Sharmistha explains how predictive analytics can engage prospective customers and enable personalization at scale.
As Big Data analytics takes center stage in large tech enterprises, Sharmistha fields questions that help tech experts understand:
- How can analytics and Big Data help to improve overall business operations?
- What are the best practices for building real-time analytics tools at the workplace?
- How can business owners use analytics to gain insights into customer behavior?
Key takeaways from this Tech Talk interview:
- Find out how Big Data really works
- Learn how to evaluate the performance of Big Data applications
- Get insights into the Big Data trends for 2020
Here’s Sharmistha’s take on how Big Data can help organizations make informed business decisions:
Sharmistha, to set the context, what is Big Data, and how has it evolved over the last few years?
Big Data refers to the massive amounts of data being collected by and available to businesses for further analysis to identify trends in everything from website visits to email open rates to brand awareness and social sentiment — all in an effort to build a data-driven view of customers to inform better decision-making. The Digitization of the World: From Edge to Core report from IDC predicts that the summation of all this data, whether it is created, captured, or replicated aka the Global Datasphere will grow from 33 Zettabytes (ZB) in 2018 to 175 ZB by 2025.
And as this data boom continues, newer ways of analysis and pattern detection are constantly being developed that has is now being supplemented further by the accelerating adoption of AI. What we perceive to be randomness will be bounded into patterns of normality by sophisticated AI algorithms that will deliver the future in new and personalized ways.
With customer experience taking center stage, how can analytics and Big Data help to improve overall business operations?
Customers today are very savvy and expectations of what makes a great experience are constantly evolving. What would have been a remarkable customer experience five years ago is now considered table stakes and business must face up to the challenge of not only meeting but exceeding these expectations. When applied correctly, Big Data and analytics together can help businesses of all sizes gain a deeper understanding of their customer behaviors and preferences and react quickly. For example, Big Data analytics can allow business to quickly identify and respond to any issues and complaints before they snowball but that is only the start. It can also allow businesses to track customer feedback to discover and develop new product features and messaging to more effectively engage with customers and build loyalty and repeat purchase.
What are the three key things tech leaders need to understand when considering investing in Big Data?
- Data created is different than data stored. From a data creation perspective, endpoints are declining as a percentage while the core and edge continue to produce more. From a data storage perspective, the amount of data being stored in endpoints will plummet as the core becomes the repository of choice for data of all types. By 2025, we expect data stored in the core to be more than double the data stored in the endpoint, completely reversing the dynamic from 2015. Edge storage will also see significant growth as latency-sensitive services and applications proliferate throughout our world.
- Cloud is the new core and much of it is additive. Today, as greater numbers of devices with greater levels of intelligence are connected to various networks, businesses and consumers are finding the cloud to be an increasingly attractive option that enables fast, ubiquitous access to their data. Increasingly, consumers are fine with lower storage capacity on endpoint devices in favor of using the cloud. By 2020, we believe that more bytes will be stored in the public cloud than in consumer devices, and by 2021, there will be more data stored in the public cloud than in traditional datacenters.
- Real-time demand is driving the edge. IDC forecasts that more than 150B devices will be connected across the globe by 2025, most of which will be creating data in real time. For example, automated machines on a manufacturing floor rely on real-time data for process control and improvement. Real-time data represents 15% of the Datasphere in 2017, and nearly 30% by 2025. (DATCON)
How can business owners use analytics to gain insights into customer behavior and sales strategies?
Sales and marketing are iterative processes where businesses build and execute strategies and tweak based on performance. The power of analytics turbocharges that process in two keyways – prediction and personalization.
Predictive analytics allows sales teams to proactively engage with prospective customers at the appropriate time based on all the data collected from various sources on past interactions and preferences. Over time, business can also build data models for which combination of sales content and touch-points generate the best results for which customer groups that will inform future sales presentations.
What are some of the best practices to keep in mind when it comes to building real-time analytics tools at the workplace?
Users at all levels of an organization can identify opportunities, mitigate risks, and improve results by using advanced business analytics—all without having an advanced background in mathematics or statistical analysis. By collecting and analyzing terabytes of data, and drawing from sources within and outside of the organization—including social media, sales reports, and demographic data—self-service BI platforms (SSBI) and dashboarding tools allow organizations to transform their stored data into insights for improved decision-making and improvements to the bottom line across the organization.
Real-time data analytics is only as good as the underlying data and it is critical that not only data hygiene is maintained but data collected by different teams is made available in a centralized location. An excellent storage infrastructure that supports an organization’s data flow is critical. A wide variety of the right purpose-built storage tools — from SSDs to hard drives and storage systems — can help you customize your workflow and meet your storage needs whether it’s in the cloud or on-premise or a combination of both.
What are some of the challenges that tech managers face in evaluating the performance of Big Data applications?
Tech managers need to keep up with the demand for real-time data collection and processing and with the emergence of the edge. According to The Digitization of the World: From Edge to Core, by 2025 almost 30 percent of data created will be real-time in nature – rather than be sent to the core of the network for processing. This means enterprises will need to build on their central cloud computing architecture and develop the ability to process – and, equally importantly, securely store – more data at the edge.
Another challenge tech managers face is where and how to efficiently store large amounts of valuable data that they are creating that these Big Data applications are built on. Periodic reviews of the underlying storage infrastructure to proactively identify issues, detect trends and plan for future growth are necessary and leveraging components that are both responsive and scalable and integrate seamlessly with existing systems will be critical.
Which are the upcoming projects at Seagate you are excited about and would like to share with us?
At Seagate, we’re excited about our new MACH.2â„¢ Multi Actuator technology which has enabled us to set a new hard drive speed record, demonstrating up to 480MB/s sustained throughput — the fastest ever. Seagate MACH.2 Multi Actuator technology doubles IOPS performance in a single hard drive by using two independent actuators that can transfer data to the host computer concurrently.
Another project we’re very excited about the development of hard drives built using the HAMR (heat-assisted magnetic recording) technology, that will enable the next big increase in the amount of data that can be stored on a hard drive. HAMR uses a new kind of magnetic technology on each disk that allows data bits, or grains, to become smaller and more densely packed than ever, while remaining magnetically stable. Seagate’s proprietary execution of HAMR technology will be delivered in the industry’s standard form factor, thus reducing total cost of ownership by getting a lot more terabytes (TB) into the same space as a conventional hard drive.
Together, Seagate’s HAMR and MACH.2 Multi Actuator technologies maximize both drive capacity and performance levels to enable and empower the next generation of Big Data and analytics applications
Which trends are you tracking in this space as we approach 2020?
We are closely tracking the evolution of AI that has the potential to disrupt many industries. For example, it’s predicted that global retail spending on AI will grow to $7.3 billion per year by 2022, up from an estimated $2 billion in 2018, according to Juniper Research. This increase in AI adoption will result in a significant increase in data storage requirements, as well as a requirement for powerful capabilities to process the data.
Another major trend is the development of edge computing especially in the areas of autonomous vehicles, telecommunication, smart cities and industrial automation. All four industries are undergoing massive disruptions and as we adapt to this new world order of connected devices and automation, the future of data and storage looks very bright indeed!
Neha: Thank you, Sharmistha, for sharing insights on Big Data and its impact on the future of data and storage. We hope to talk to you again soon.
About Sharmistha MallikOpens a new window :
Sharmistha Mallik manages the go-to-market planning and execution for the enterprise-class storage solutions in the Seagate portfolio globally. She specializes in tracking the latest trends impacting the storage-intensive industries such as M&E, telecommunications and retail through a combination of industry research, competitive analysis and customer feedback to develop thought-leadership content and recommendations on best-fit storage solutions.
About SeagateOpens a new window :
Seagate is the global leader in data storage solutions, developing amazing products that enable people and businesses around the world to create, share and use. Since 1979, Seagate has been creating precision-engineered data storage technologies that deliver superior capacity, speed, safety, and performance.
About Tech Talk:
Tech Talk is a Toolbox Interview Series with notable CTOs from around the world. Join us to share your insights and research on where technology and data are heading in the future. This interview series focuses on integrated solutions, research and best practices in the day-to-day work of the tech world.
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