Matt Aslett's Analyst Perspectives

The data and analytics sector rightly places great importance on data quality: Almost two-thirds (64%) of participants in Ventana Research’s Analytics and Data Benchmark Research cite reviewing data for quality and consistency issues as the most time-consuming task in analyzing data. Data and analytics vendors would not recommend that customers use tools known to have data quality problems. It is somewhat surprising, therefore, that data and analytics vendors are rushing to encourage customers...

The data platforms market has traditionally been divided between products specifically designed to support operational or analytic workloads, with other market segments having emerged in recent years for data platforms targeted specifically at data science and machine learning (ML), as well as real-time analytics. More recently, we have seen vendor strategies evolving to provide a more consolidated approach, with data platforms designed to address a combination of analytics and data science, as...

The recent publication of our Value Index research highlights the impact of intelligent applications on the operational data platforms sector. While we continue to believe that, for most use cases, there is a clear, functional requirement for either analytic or operational data platforms, recent growth in the development of intelligent applications infused with the results of analytic processes, such as personalization and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven recommendations, has increasing...

Success with streaming data and events requires a more holistic approach to managing and governing data in motion and data at rest. The use of streaming data and event processing has been part of the data landscape for many decades. For much of that time, data streaming was a niche activity, however, with standalone data streaming and event-processing projects run in parallel with existing batch-processing initiatives, utilizing operational and analytic data platforms. I noted that there has...

When joining Ventana Research, I noted that the need to be more data-driven has become a mantra among large and small organizations alike. Data-driven organizations stand to gain competitive advantage, responding faster to worker and customer demands for more innovative, data-rich applications and personalized experiences. Being data-driven is clearly something to aspire to. However, it is also a somewhat vague concept without clear definition. We know data-driven organizations when we see them...

I recently wrote about the growing range of use cases for which NoSQL databases can be considered, given increased breadth and depth of functionality available from providers of the various non-relational data platforms. As I noted, one category of NoSQL databases — graph databases — are inherently suitable for use cases that rely on relationships, such as social media, fraud detection and recommendation engines, since the graph data model represents the entities and values and also the...

I previously described the concept of hydroanalytic data platforms, which combine the structured data processing and analytics acceleration capabilities associated with data warehousing with the low-cost and multi-structured data storage advantages of the data lake. One of the key enablers of this approach is interactive SQL query engine functionality, which facilitates the use of existing business intelligence (BI) and data science tools to analyze data in data lakes. Interactive SQL query...

I previously explained how the data lakehouse is one of two primary approaches being adopted to deliver what I have called a hydroanalytic data platform. Hydroanalytics involves the combination of data warehouse and data lake functionality to enable and accelerate analysis of data in cloud storage services. The term data lakehouse has been rapidly adopted by several vendors in recent years to describe an environment in which data warehousing functionality is integrated into the data lake...

As I recently described, it is anticipated that the majority of database workloads will continue to be served by specialist data platforms targeting operational and analytic workloads, albeit with growing demand for hybrid data processing use-cases and functionality. Specialist operational and analytic data platforms have historically been the since preferred option, but there have always been general-purpose databases that could be used for both analytic and operational workloads, with tuning...

I recently wrote about the potential benefits of data mesh. As I noted, data mesh is not a product that can be acquired, or even a technical architecture that can be built. It’s an organizational and cultural approach to data ownership, access and governance. While the concept of data mesh is agnostic to the technology used to implement it, technology is clearly an enabler for data mesh. For many organizations, new technological investment and evolution will be required to facilitate adoption...