Four Technologies Reshaping Business Intelligence

"Past performance is no guarantee of future results."

Today, more than ever, senior managers, directors, and financial markets are not interested in encountering surprises and demand a better vision of the future.

Therefore, business intelligence initiatives remain at the top of the priority list for Chief Information Officers.

Business intelligence is often flawed, revealing insight about the past but not about current or future performance.

This problem is about to change through next-generation business intelligence, which brings with it four change factors:

1. In-memory processing- An effective memory processing process with faster analysis, made possible thanks to the following capabilities:

   1. Increasing use of high-memory, 64-bit operating systems

   2. High speed of executing requests to retrieve information from a database (query). Currently, requests take seconds instead of minutes or hours

   3. Forward-looking capabilities and real-time analysis

2. Stream processing technologies- Technologies for processing the information stream to provide real-time monitoring enable:

   1. In-depth diagnosis and processing of complex events

   2. Immediate notification via email or text message, thus eliminating the need for constant system monitoring

   3. Automatic response

3. Real-time Analysis- Analyzing data in real-time so we can predict situations in advance allows:

   1. Performing statistical analysis in real-time

   2. Planning interpretation on-demand rather than from statistical experts

4. Fast Deployment- Rapid deployment enables:

   1. Development and deployment of models, where users can utilize knowledge and analysis without extensive knowledge and preparation

   2. Data preparation without time investment from end-users

   3. Integration with existing systems

In conclusion, next-generation business intelligence technology is still evolving and carries risks. Usually, prediction requires statistical expertise, which is a rare and expensive resource. Real-time monitoring of processing streams can be a "lifeline" for an organization, but only if you can respond as quickly as possible when you identify an opportunity or danger. Fast in-memory analysis tools are sold hastily, but they may force companies to pay for higher-performance hardware (64-bit hardware).

For more information on the subject, you can read the full article:

Henshen, Doug (August 29, 2009). "4 Technologies That Are Reshaping Business Intelligence." Information Week. http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=219500363