In Depth

In Depth

Big data analytics

• Why Pegasystems' CEO, Alan Trefler, has learned to think smaller

  Pegasystems has made its name supplying CRM, analytics and case management software to the world's largest companies. Now CEO Alan Trefler plans to use cloud computing to broaden Pega's appeal  Continue Reading

• Appliances move well beyond the hype

  Simplicity and big data are driving appliance adoption while suppliers strive to integrate cloud services  Continue Reading

• Spark versus MapReduce: which way for enterprise IT?

  The younger, nimbler Spark technology looks set to replace MapReduce in big data architectures. What is the pace, scope and scale of replacement?  Continue Reading

• Finding the right big data appliance for your business

  A big data appliance should be chosen carefully to ensure its value to the business warrants the expenditure  Continue Reading

• Using SAP Hana as a data warehouse

  Enterprises are using SAP Hana for in-memory data marts and SAP Business Warehouse implementations that integrate with other data warehouses  Continue Reading

• Is the future of business predictive?

  Michael Feindt, CERN scientist and founder of a predictive analytics software house, sees a future of more automated business decision-making  Continue Reading

• EAT builds appetite for predictive analytics

  Food retailer EAT uses predictive analytics from Blue Yonder to cut food waste by predicting future demand better  Continue Reading

• British Gas Smart Metering consolidates data with Qlik on Hadoop

  British Gas Smart Metering has used QlikView dashboards on Hadoop data lake to gain single view of its business  Continue Reading

• Digital transformation needs business leaders to develop new skills

  A panel of experts discuss the capabilities business leaders and corporate IT need to develop for digital  Continue Reading

• CIO interview: CABI’s Andrea Powell on feeding the world

  CABI CIO Andrea Powell says the not-for-profit agri-science data provider aims to solve the world’s agricultural problems with data, structured and unstructured  Continue Reading

• How database virtualisation helped the European Bioinformatics Institute save datacentre space

  The European Bioinformatics Institute recently scooped the award for Best Datacentre Project at the CW European User Awards, and here's why  Continue Reading

• Don't wait for EU regulation to practice good data ethics

  The EU is working hard to achieve a unified law on data ethics and privacy, but companies should look beyond just complying with the law to gain consumer trust  Continue Reading

• How Ordnance Survey will use 250 years of data to support startups

  Ordnance Survey is embarking on a project to foster startups, applying its vast repository of data to solving emerging challenges around urban spaces and smart cities  Continue Reading

• Business cases emerge from growing pains of Hadoop 1.0

  The hype around the early generation of Hadoop is giving way to the reality of business programmes based on Hadoop 2 and Apache Spark  Continue Reading

• Russian big data technologies evolve with one eye on US open source

  Russian data technicians have, until recently, shunned full-scale use of US-based open-source big data technology; but with one eye on it  Continue Reading

• Turning machine data into operational intelligence

  We look at how companies analyse server and security logs to tackle cybercrime and internal fraud, and optimise the user experience  Continue Reading

• Hotels.com turns to cloud and big data to drive up online holiday bookings

  Online hotel booking site explains how the use of public cloud and NoSQL database tech has benefited its business  Continue Reading

• Genomics England gears up IT for next phase of development

  Genomics England, the government-owned organisation aiming to map 100,000 genomes by 2017, has recruited its first patients. It is also assembling the building blocks of its long-term IT strategy  Continue Reading

• Using data analytics to deliver more personalised customer service

  Personalisation has been the goal for many retailers, but can the emergence of big data analytics be the solution they are looking for?  Continue Reading

• NoSQL and NewSQL edge into Belgian railways and Austrian yellow pages

  NoSQL, NewSQL and graph databases are finding uses in mainstream European industry sectors from origins in US dotcoms  Continue Reading

• Bill Binney, the ‘original’ NSA whistleblower, on Snowden, 9/11 and illegal surveillance

  Always a patriot: Computer Weekly talks to Bill Binney, the senior NSA official who blew the whistle before Edward Snowden  Continue Reading

• Apache Spark speeds up big data decision-making

  Spark, the open-source cluster computing framework from Apache, promises to complement Hadoop batch processing  Continue Reading

• DevOps spreads into mainstream corporate IT

  DevOps will shift from being a niche approach to application development and deployment, and move into the mainstream  Continue Reading

• Open Data Platform: the answer to a question no one asked?

  What should enterprise customers make of the Open Data Platform, an initiative by IT suppliers to establish common technologies for Hadoop?  Continue Reading

• Business intelligence gains ground in Italy’s manufacturing industry

  How Italian manufacturers Bticino and Raccorderie Metalliche are using BI to be more efficient and agile  Continue Reading

• Waste and traffic management apps come from internet of things

  For years, the fridge has been the poster boy for the internet of things, but lack of commercial availability raises questions about the future  Continue Reading

• NHS 111 shows how medical diagnosis can be computerised

  Can the logistical and financial pressures on the NHS be eased by software algorithms?  Continue Reading

• Five tech trends that will change the mobile world in the next 10 years

  Computer scientist Kevin Curran discusses some of the trends that will shape the future of mobile at Mobile World Congress 2015  Continue Reading

• Internet of things could make ERP flexible, intelligent and real-time

  To profit from all the data collected from the internet of things, future ERP has to be flexible, intelligent and give real-time information  Continue Reading

• Single inventory accuracy: the holy grail of retail

  The ability to accurately pinpoint where stock is at every point in the supply chain is one of the biggest challenges facing retailers today  Continue Reading

• Polish companies face challenges with big data storage infrastructure

  As Polish enterprises embrace data analytics they face the challenge of big data storage that can handle rapidly growing and varied datasets  Continue Reading

• Chief data and digital officers rise to threaten the CIO

  Just as the most senior IT executive finally proves their worth, a new evangelist tries to take credit for all-things-digital: the CDO  Continue Reading

• Businesses dig for treasure in open data

  Open data, a movement that promises access to vast swaths of information held by public bodies, has begun getting its hands dirty, or rather its feet  Continue Reading

• Data analysts deploy Monte Carlo modelling gambit to fight West African Ebola virus epidemic

  Mathematicians are using data analytics to predict how the Ebola epidemic will spread so aid can be deployed effectively  Continue Reading

• Top 10 information management stories of 2014

  How SAP’s technology helped Germany win the football World Cup was 2014’s top information management story  Continue Reading

• Inside the Digital Catapult, six startups at the forefront of data innovation

  The recently opened Digital Catapult in London’s Kings Cross is home to ambitious technology startups innovating around big data  Continue Reading

• Digital ad delivery firm Adstream uses Pentaho to add analytics edge

  Global digital asset management company Adstream turns to Pentaho’s data integration technology to mount its Adbank platform  Continue Reading

• Interview: Fujitsu CTO Joseph Reger on human-centric innovation

  Joseph Reger, Fujitsu's EMEIA CTO, discusses human-centric innovation and the need for responsible attitudes to technology  Continue Reading

• Unlock the business benefits of digitisation

  Analytics technology can help to transform the customer experience, but to achieve its full potential, IT and marketing must work together  Continue Reading

• Transport for London builds customer profiles using RFID data analytics

  Transport for London (TfL) uses cashless payment cards and RFID tags to create detailed customer profiles  Continue Reading

• How the BBC became digital in three-and-a-half years

  The BBC has undergone a digital transformation that started 18 months prior to the London 2012 Olympic Games  Continue Reading

• Managing workloads in an era of changing datacentre architecture

  Different workloads require different basic resources and hybrid cloud needs more intelligent workload management  Continue Reading

• Genomics England exploits big data analytics to personalise cancer treatment

  Cancer Research UK and government-funded Genomics England use DNA-sequenced big data analytics to develop personalised cancer treatment  Continue Reading

• Dutch government organisations innovate in the field of BI

  The Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority and the Radiocommunications Agency are using advanced BI to do new things  Continue Reading

• MicroStrategy’s Klein: Enterprise analytics base confers mobile edge

  Jonathan Klein, president and chief legal officer of business intelligence company MicroStrategy, talks to Computer Weekly  Continue Reading

• A guide to scale-out NAS: The specialists and startups

  Specialist suppliers and startups in scale-out NAS, a technology that’s gone mainstream for its superior ability to scale capacity and performance  Continue Reading

• Polish banking, energy and public services weigh up benefits of big data applications

  For many Polish institutions big data is still only in the planning stage, but banks and the energy and public sectors are beginning to use the technology  Continue Reading

• Q&A: MarkLogic CEO Gary Bloom talks strategy

  Gary Bloom, CEO of NoSQL database supplier MarkLogic, talks to Computer Weekly about strategy  Continue Reading

• Sweden’s Verisure and Höganäs set competence bar high for BI

  Swedish companies Verisure and Höganäs take care to design business intelligence competence into their organisations  Continue Reading

• Sweden’s Klarna and Spotify design big data architectures to aid business growth

  Many organisations still don't know how to capitalise on big data. Swedish firms Klarna and Spotify are making use of its possibilities  Continue Reading

• How the internet of things could transform Britain’s railways

  Network Rail Telecom and supplier partner Cisco reveal how they are working together to digitise the national railway infrastructure  Continue Reading

• CIO Interview: Gary Steen, CTO, TalkTalk

  Gary Steen, CTO at ISP TalkTalk, says transforming internal IT will help him meet growing demands for superfast data connectivity  Continue Reading

• UCAS uses Splunk to get real-time data on A-level results day

  The day when A-level results come out is a dramatic occasion for UCAS’s IT team, which uses Splunk to troubleshoot the network  Continue Reading

• Data analytics adds science to the valuation of footballers

  How do you decide the value of a footballer? The problem has been given added torque by the vogue for applying data science to sports  Continue Reading

• IT governance in the era of shadow IT

  The latest CW500 Club invited IT leaders to discuss the challenges of governance with the rise of 'shadow IT' outside the IT team  Continue Reading

• Wearable technology will up the game for sports data analytics

  Wearable technology is a big industry thanks to the ‘quantified self’ movement. It’s now giving a boost to professional sports data analytics professionals  Continue Reading

• In-memory database technology puts Mitie and Wooga in the fast lane

  Mitie uses IBM Cognos running on a DB2 Blu in-memory database taking data from Oracle. And gaming firm Wooga is using Exasol to speed up design  Continue Reading

• Channel 4 Grand National app lets punters track horses

  When Channel 4 won the rights to screen the Grand National it decided to use mobile to take the mystery out of the magnificent chaos of the event  Continue Reading

• Big data storage: Analytics takes small first steps in Turkey

  Etiya’s Somemto social media management project makes pioneering steps in big data with a Hadoop cluster on an Oracle Big Data Appliance.  Continue Reading

• Data mining evolves in the era of new data science

  As more and more firms look to analyse ever larger datasets, so data mining technology is becoming increasingly critical to data scientists  Continue Reading

• Analytics scours World Cups for greatest footballer of all time

  Sports data company Opta’s analytics of every World Cup finals match ever played since 1966 adds to the debate on who is football’s greatest of all time  Continue Reading

• HP Autonomy executive: big data transcends analytics

  Robert Youngjohns, executive vice-president at HP, speaks to Computer Weekly about why big data does not reduce to analytics  Continue Reading

• Soundwave tunes to MongoDB to track music consumption on mobile

  Irish startup Soundwave is using NoSQL database MongoDB to help it track what people are listening to on mobile devices  Continue Reading

• Unilever puts SAP at the captain’s table

  Consumer goods company Unilever works hand in glove with SAP in “speeding up its growth”, according to senior executives at the two firms  Continue Reading

• Making pancakes: How Russia plans a technology sector to rival Silicon Valley

  The Russian government is putting £10bn into the Skolkovo Innovation Centre – an ambitious project to create Russia’s equivalent of Silicon Valley  Continue Reading

• Cloudera v Hortonworks: Hadoop to complement or replace data warehouse?

  As the market for enterprise Hadoop heats up, the battle lines between two suppliers - Cloudera and Hortonworks - become more clearly defined  Continue Reading

• Undercover economist Tim Harford decries data visualisation dazzle

  The Undercover Economist author says 200 years of statistical science should not be cast aside for the blandishments of ‘big data’ propagandists  Continue Reading

• Bywaters waste management uses BI to improve customers’ recycling

  Bywaters, a recycling and waste management company, has improved productivity by 4% using Pentaho data integration and business intelligence software  Continue Reading

• Messier-Bugatti-Dowty gears up BI with QlikView toolbox

  Messier-Bugatti-Dowty, an aviation industry specialist in aircraft landing and braking systems, is using QlikView to support business process improvement  Continue Reading

• Accenture’s UK analytics head sees clients reorganising for digital

  Ray Eitel-Porter is managing director of analytics for Accenture UK & Ireland. He talks to Computer Weekly about how data management has assumed a more elevated strategic role as companies go digital  Continue Reading

• IT security analytics: the before, during and after

  Effective IT security calls for intelligence ahead of, during and following an attack.  Continue Reading

• Using NoSQL databases to gain competitive advantage

  NoSQL is attracting growing interest from businesses - we examine three case studies: Amadeus, i2O and Temetra  Continue Reading

• The digital CIO: How digital technology will change the way organisations work

  If you are an IT leader, digital technology is likely to be a pivotal factor in your career over the next five years  Continue Reading

• The digital CIO: How digital technology will change the role of IT leaders

  We have now reached the point where corporate IT as we know it will succeed or fail  Continue Reading

• Big data storage in the Benelux

  Organisation in the Benelux countries are turning to big data analytics, but big data storage options can vary significantly between the lab and production environments  Continue Reading

• Hadoop 2 opens new vistas beyond current UK data management practice

  Hadoop 2 enables a greater range of data-crunching tasks, beyond Hadoop’s previous scope of batch processing, directly within the stack itself  Continue Reading

• Advanced data visualisation tools transcend traditional bean counting

  Advanced data visualisation tools take Muddy Boots and Volvo beyond conventional business intelligence  Continue Reading

• What does 2014 hold for HR technology?

  A look at the key battlegrounds in HR technology in 2014  Continue Reading

• Cloudera CTO: enterprise ‘data hub’ is smartphone to data warehouse SLR

  Amr Awadallah is the chief technology officer and a co-founder at Hadoop distributor Cloudera. Here he briefs Computer Weekly on how the supplier is advocating the concept of an ‘enterprise data hub’  Continue Reading

• SAP execs predict more innovation as economic outlook improves in 2014

  SAP executives are looking to 2014 as a year to establish the supplier’s innovation agenda of in-memory database technology, cloud and mobile  Continue Reading

• Top 10 information management stories of 2013

  Top 10 information management stories of 2013. Putting analytics to work emerged as the most popular theme, with Tesco, McLaren, and Telefonica Ireland among those leading the data analytics pack  Continue Reading

• Procter & Gamble uses Teradata cloud analytics for global marketing

  Procter & Gamble has 15,000 websites, but sells almost exclusively through retailers. This makes gathering intelligence on customers tough  Continue Reading

• Future Gazing: The Future of IT in 2020

  The next six years will see the influence of technology accelerate, and that will mean radical changes for the role of the IT department and the CIO  Continue Reading

• Failure to invest in sentiment analytics could lead to brand damage

  Early adopter companies in retail and investment banking are exploring social media sentiment analytics  Continue Reading

• Tryg and Scottish Widows improve customer response with analytics

  Tryg Insurance uses Portrait, and Scottish Widows Oracle CRM on-demand to better analyse customer behaviour, reduce churn, and increase revenue  Continue Reading

• Skillpages develops DataStax Cassandra to rank trades with NoSQL

  How do you find a good tree surgeon you can trust because he or she has been recommended by someone in your social circle?  Continue Reading

• Basho CTO Justin Sheehy describes NoSQL movement as ‘Cambrian’

  Justin Sheehy (pictured), CTO at NoSQL database company Basho, describes the NoSQL movement as ‘Cambrian’  Continue Reading

• Data discovery tools open up new vistas for healthcare informatics

  The newer generation of BI tools, often called ‘data discovery’ software, is opening up new vistas in healthcare informatics. Orlando Agrippa, QlikView enthusiast and NHS health BI leader proselytises  Continue Reading

• EU open data promotion could benefit UK economy, says CEBR

  The EU’s moves towards an open data directive will create 58,000 jobs in the UK and add £216bn to the economy  Continue Reading

• Data-driven innovation

  Still in the early adopter phase, some shining examples of predictive analytics demonstrate the potentially enormous benefits it can deliver.  Continue Reading

• Virgin Media uses ETAdirect to manage engineers more predictively

  Virgin Media is using predictive analytics to get the right engineer out to the right problem. It believes its use of TOA Technologies cloud-based ETAdirect system gives it a competitive advantage  Continue Reading

• CW500: The rise of the machines – how devices are taking over the internet

  By 2020, there will be a trillion sensors sending data over the internet  Continue Reading

• Big data journalism exposes offshore tax dodgers

  How journalists harnessed big data to challenge offshore financial secrecy  Continue Reading

• Big data storage choices

  Big data storage demands capacity and processing/IOPS performance and a range of choices exist such as scale-out NAS, object storage, hyperscale and hyper-converged storage  Continue Reading

• Power in the palms of their hands: serving the customers of the future

  Customer information is provided at every touch in our socially enabled lives. By 2020, everything will be known about us  Continue Reading

• Getting the measure of collecting data for a future of personalised service

  Businesses that know about their customers have always been able to use that data to offer a bespoke service - big data brings new opportunities  Continue Reading

• Big data and analytics: a large challenge offering great opportunities

  The ability to collect and present information in a way that a business can understand, so it can make decisions faster, will be key to keeping competitive  Continue Reading

• Information security is a big data issue

  First-generation security information and event management (SIEM) products have been overwhelmed by the volume of data they now harvest  Continue Reading

• Three approaches to HANA adoption: business need, process, full ERP

  Accenture consultants identify three ways to adopt HANA: tactical, addressing a single business process, full-scale ERP transformation  Continue Reading

• CW500: Why Channel 4 is crunching big data

  Bob Harris, Channel 4's chief technology officer, charts the broadcaster's technology strategy to use big data to form closer links with viewers  Continue Reading