On the first day of IBM’s Information On Demand 2012, Jeff Kelly of theCube had the opportunity to sit down with Tim Vincent the CTO for Information Management with IBM (full video below).

The discussion starts with the new offerings from IBM with their PureData Systems.  Vincent outlines that the offerings are in the areas of transactions, operational analytics, and analytics. He says that the systems are integrated for performance, cost, and ongoing management. With the transactions system they wanted to make the “private cloud” dynamic. Data is generated from the transactions, and made available for faster analysis. Customers want to be able to do analysis closer to the source of origin rather than waiting for data to be moved for analysis.

When asked about the existence of a unified big data platform, Vincent feels that it may come in the future, but as it stands right now there will continue to be data movement. One reason for that is due to the difficulty it is to get rid of legacy systems and processes that are already in place at an enterprise.

The discussion flows into talking about big data applications. Vincent feels that it is best to understand what kind of data you are working with first with the varying data types. Once that is understood, the applications can be built. It is brought out that big data is a “business solution, not a technology solution.”  Businesses want to see the value in big data. Vincent states that, “It’s all about delivering value in the end. And if you’re not delivering value, all the infrastructure in the world is meaningless.” It is best to start the discussion with an enterprise with what they are trying to accomplish and gain from their data. Then a proper solution can be reached.

In the future, IBM will continue to work on the tooling around big data and applications so that the value of it can be realized for their customers.

See the full interview below.