What is Big Data? What is Big Data analytics? These are questions that are heard more and more often today, especially in Italy, where big data has recently become a must for all  companies that aim to become a “data-driven company” to make informed decisions based on relevant data. So let’s see in detail to give a definition and a simple explanation to the concept of Big Data.

Big Data constitutes a growing amount of information that the digital transformation of business is creating and circulating inside and outside companies.

Beyond the data flows produced by information systems and infrastructures supporting the production, distribution and provision of services, big data is a phenomenon associated with a massive evolution in the uses and habits of the population.

How does Big data help companies?

Big data can be used in companies to:

• Help to understand the reactions of the markets and the perception they have of brands;
• Identify the key factors that move people to purchase a certain service or product;
• Segment the population to customize action strategies as much as possible;
• Exploit the power of predictive algorithms, thanks to an information history so wide-ranging and timely that it allows simulations that are much more than likely;
• Enable new business models.

Examples of use: Smart City and Retail Companies

Smart cities are becoming a shining example of Big Data Management and Big Data Analysts. Thanks to the sensorized street lamps, the PA is able to better manage traffic peaks and monitor pollution. Police can reconstruct suspicious car routes by analyzing ubiquitous closed circuit cameras (CCTVs) outside clubs and banks. For separate collection, RFID tags are used which make bins, tubs and bags connected and communicating.

All this represents a mountain of information to be collected and analyzed to define an offer of services and products that are increasingly tailored to the customer.

Using the features related to geomarketing and geolocation (beacons, NFC, apps, interactive touch points), the opportunities are significant.

Technological trends

The technological trends that are transforming the data analysis scenario in organizations are based mainly on Hadoop, an open source software platform for processing large amounts of data in parallel mode, which has established itself as a technological standard in recent years.

Today, however, the open source ecosystem has been enriched with technologies and complexity, in order to better manage real-time analysis and Machine Learning. Thus new technological standards are established, such as Apache Spark (processing engine in the Hadoop cluster) and Apache Kafka (stream processing system).

Big Data with SAP

It is possible to integrate Big data systems with SAP HANA or more simply with HANA, in order to take advantage of the in-memory computing capacity of HANA.

A typical connection diagram is shown in the following picture, where the aggregation and data management functions of Hadoop are used, which processes data from sensors connected to factory PLCs.

Hadoop is also available in cloud version on Amazon’s AWS platform, which also provides a strategic vision of federation with the SAP application world, allowing the use of aggregated and processed data through multiple analytical applications that can use HANA and CDS views as layers of extraction of ad hoc queries, while ensuring security, scalability, efficiency and access control.

In this way, it is therefore possible to use HANA as a management and integration layer towards analytical applications, such as SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP Data Wharehouse Cloud, which in turn can connect with SAP Cloud Based applications such as Successfactors, Concur, Fieldglass and others that therefore they can exploit the information obtained from the processing of numerous raw data coming from external reality to analyze consumer behavioral trends, provide data for predictive maintenance of factory machinery and other aspects that contribute to realizing the concept of “Intelligent Enterprise”.

PL3 & Partners has developed projects in this area and has acquired direct and in-depth experience in these scenarios

For more information please contact us at marketing@pl3group.com

Emiliano D’Oronzo, BI Area Manager

Paolo Ponte, Sales & Marketing Manager