As the big data database market continues to consolidate, one of the last independent analytic database companies ParAccel has been acquired by database vendor Actian. ParAccel, an analytic database company is an integral part of the Amazon Web Services Redshift data warehouse service. It also has a large customer base that includes MicroStrategy, one of the leaders in business intelligence.

Actian continues to add to its extensive database assets, which include the Ingres relational database, Vectorwise analytic database and the Versant object database. The significant benefit of this acquisition is that it allows Actian to address the needs of customers with databases exceeding 10 terabytes, which is considered the upper range for Vectorwise. It also allows it to compete with the larger players in the analytics market, including Teradata, Oracle, IBM and HP.

With ParAccel, Actian adds to its Hadoop capabilities gained through the acquisition of Pervasive Software with its DataRush platform. This enables faster and deeper analysis through its integration with Hadoop.

The acquisition, in my opinion, is very strategic for Actian and should place the company in the upper echelon of big data database players and provide an independent alternative to many of the larger companies in the market. The challenge for Actian will be how it differentiates and integrates all of its database offerings going forward. Only time will tell!

It's only a few days until you will cast your ballot for the candidate of your choice. The casting of that ballot is a decision-making process, and the following guest post from Jake Freivald of Information Builders gives you more reasons to vote for the BI ticket!

Here's Jake's insight into business intelligence and financial regulations:

Way back when I was in the Marine Corps, we used to joke about the number of acronyms we used. If you've ever thought to yourself that the OPS OIC and OOD need to read the MEF G-2 SOP ASAP, you know what I mean.

Later, when I started working in computer technology, it got no better. You may know that SAP uses IDocs and BAPIs and RFCs (oh, my!), or that web developers use SDKs to handle HTML5, DOM inspection, CSS, and other W3C standards, or that you can write JCL to use GDGs instead of PDSs on the 3390s used by MVS. Nobody does it better than technologists.

But our industry has nothing on the financial services industry. Besides the obvious stuff financial CFOs worry about, like AP, AR, the GL, GAAP, and the SEC, they have to worry about FINRA, CFTC, OCC, OTS, AIFMD, Sarbox, FATCA, FISMA, and... well, you get the idea. And the regulatory burden gets heavier all the time.

Whether you think these burdens are undue drags on the economy or a cost of doing business needed to protect us from harm, it's worth seeing what the burden is -- and a few of those facts are in the infographic below.

Of course, there is no industry more heavily dependent on data. Numbers are the lifeblood of their business. (Don't worry, I won't show any lifeblood. Halloween was yesterday.) And that means that CFOs, compliance officers, knowledge workers -- frankly, almost everyone in the company -- needs information, and the more analytical they can be, the better. One more reason to vote for the BI ticket in 2012.

(P.S. If you haven't seen them already, check out our other infographics for healthcare and investments in higher education.)

Okay, this post isn't really about ghosts and goblins, but I bet I got your attention. I couldn't resist sharing a big data infographic from Actian. This Halloween-themed infographic shows the results of a survey of CIOs and their perceptions, challenges and expectations for big data solutions.

Happy Halloween!

With election day just a week away, we're all evaluating our choices so we'll be prepared to cast our ballots on November 6. In the spirit of educated decision making, Information Builders' Jake Freivald, Vice President of Corporate Marketing provides a guest post and infographic for my blog -- this time focusing on education. (If you didn't see his Decision 2012 healthcare blog, click here.

Here's Jake's guest post:

Everyone believes that higher education should be a priority for America, but they differ on the ways in which it should be addressed. President Obama has pushed plans for student loan forgiveness and consolidation, hoping that by providing the funding that families need, more people will be able to afford the education needed to stay competitive. Governor Romney says that "a flood of federal dollars is driving up tuition and burdening too many young Americans with substantial debt and too few opportunities." (See: http://www.mittromney.com/issues/education.)
 
Regardless of our individual opinions on the situation, it's clear that the federal government is investing large amounts of money in loans and grants that will help students get a college education. Since that's unlikely to change immediately, we can focus narrowly on the question: What is that investment getting us?
 
The infographic below highlights some of the questions and a few answers that we should be asking to determine where this money should go, regardless of who the President is in the next four years.
 
It also shows why business intelligence -- and predictive analytics in particular, probably using big data stores that collect information on millions of student loan recipients -- will be important for institutions and the government in the next five years.
 
Feel free to share this infographic with your friends and colleagues. And I'll be back a little later in the week with one more post, this time on financial regulations. Stay tuned!


 

With the presidential election fast approaching, I'm pleased to provide a guest post and great infographic from Information Builders' Jake Freivald, Vice President of Corporate Marketing. I think you'll agree that no matter which candidate we support, we will all want to vote for the Business Intelligence Ticket (found below)!

Here's Jake's post:

"I don't think a working mom in Denver should have to wait to get a mammogram just because money is tight. I don't think a college student in Colorado Springs should have to choose between textbooks and the preventive care she needs. That's why we have this law. It was the right thing to do."

 

"The reason health care is so expensive... [is] not just because of insurance, it's because of the cost of providing care. And one reason for that is the person who receives care in America generally doesn't care how much it costs, because once they've paid their deductible, it's free. And the provider, the more they do, the more they get paid.... What we have to do is make sure that individuals have a concern and care about how much something costs."

 
The presidential candidates have stark differences over healthcare. Governor Romney thinks costs are going up because consumers aren't focused on them enough; President Obama thinks costs are high enough that we need to relieve people from thinking about them too much.
 
There's no question, though, that business intelligence will play a large part in containing the dramatic costs that threaten to overwhelm our personal and governmental budgets. Whether it helps healthcare providers achieve greater efficiencies and attain meaningful use of electronic health records, or whether it helps government agencies eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid and Medicare, we'll need business intelligence and analytics to help us make smarter decisions about where our money goes.
 
Perhaps we'll even see some business intelligence delivered to us end consumers to help us make choices about our own healthcare. The question is: Will it help us choose plans in a governmental exchange, or will it help us choose which plan to spend our vouchers on? Stay tuned for November 6 and check back next week for related posts on more hot button election topics!