Data Analytics Open a World of Possibilities

Astounding. Amazing. Eye-opening.

These are the kind of words that David Kushner, Director of Big Data Analytics and Cyber Practice at ViON, used to describe the current state of the world of analytics at GovLoop’s recent data analytics event.

“A new world of possibilities is being opened for us,” he stated. “Today is a very exciting time.”

According to Kushner, though what we’re seeing today in terms of analytics development is “astounding,” big data has actually been around for quite a long time.

“Why is big data hpyed NOW?” he asked. “It is not new. It’s been around forever.”

But the reason it’s finally becoming so talked about? Because it’s taken until today to become advanced enough to store as much data as we want — an ability we previously did not have.

“It is only now that we have the computing power to make sense of the data,” Kushner said.

However, there is still one problem: Much of this data resides in multiple if not thousands of different silos. And different kinds of data require different kind of analytics to be run on it.

“One piece of data may mean one thing but when fused together with others it may tell you a completely different story,” explained Kushner.

This is a problem because data is of no use unless it can be accessed and utilized easily.

“We need to learn to actually utilize data to be able to gain actionable intelligence and derive value,” Kushner said.

“Even though we have all these different types of data and are trying to make sense of it, today we CAN do something about to make sense of it,” he continued. “As difficult as it all looks it becomes infinitely easier to derive value from data because of our computing capabilities and enhancements in technology and compute power that we have today.”

So how does it work? Kushner used the following illustration to explain.

“The process of data to knowledge to intelligence is this,” he said. “You move from data, to derived info, to knowledge, to intelligence.”

Big data, as it stands today, is often just too much for the human eye, Kushner said.

“That’s why we need big data analytic platforms to make data easy and user-friendly so anyone can gain intelligence and action and help make the world a better place,” he finished.

You can see Kushner’s slides here.