How Cloud Can Enhance Analytics

Bangalore: In a world that is heavily relying on information for revenue, it is hard to think of a time when a data warehouse implementation was not in place to create reports for the management and business users.

Let us temporarily shift our focus to Cloud; more specifically public clouds. What can a public cloud bring to the BI plate? Well, large capacity, rapid deployment and easy availability at a low cost are extremely attractive prospects. Lindsey Nelson states on business2community.com that the appeal of cloud with regards to data warehousing depends on database workloads. She states that for analytics workloads that would involve complex computations, relying on public clouds would probably not be a sound idea. There is still a long way to go for standardized public cloud architecture to be in place that can support analytics. For a while, reliance on private clouds would probably be more prudent. There are several benefits to this, as stated by research analyst Mark Madsen in a white paper from Third Nature.

Better Management of Costs: The Data warehousing infrastructure will not be heavily weighed down by the budget constraints. A pay for use cloud scheme could enable capital to be reallocated for operation; effectively BI projects would be approved more easily by management.

Optimizing Performance: There would be no need to size an environment in expectation of peak workloads. BI is associated with a need to process real time data. This requirement can be deftly handled in a private cloud.

Improved Capacity: Ever heard of a scenario, where a small underdog BI project is overlooked for a bigger one? It is quite common. With on demand resources, the IT team can effectively develop, test and deploy small analytic projects.

So the private clouds can deliver many of the benefits of a public cloud, without the disadvantages.