With the introduction of Big Data analytics, companies now have the power to determine changes they need to make to improve operations, develop better marketing strategies, and make sure their data is secure. But, one roadblock in this endeavor includes the fact that while many companies know they have massive amounts of big data available, few know how to access all of that information.

Dave Vellante of theCUBE spoke with Randy Cairns, VP of Corporate Marketing at HP Software, and Brian Weiss, VP at HP Software, at HP Discovery Las Vegas 2014 about HP’s IDOL OnDemand service, and how it impacts Big Data analysis.

• What is IDOL OnDemand?

IDOL OnDemand is based on the premise of understanding raw, human-generated data. This includes making sense of text documents and images. In essence, IDOL uses probability modeling to match up data with the concepts contained within it, or understanding meaning within massive amounts of Big Data. HP allows system users to submit a question and then receive an answer.

When describing the power of IDOL OnDemand and the Early Access Program, Weiss said, “The power that this offers to the development community, to be able to develop fast, rapid applications that understand human information is, we think is game changing to the point where we are just making it available free. The business model here is: You use it. You want to play with IDOL, here it is.”

Finding meaning within data

When asked what else they were doing for developers, Cairns responded, “Another very important component of this is working with partners. As part of the HAVEn platform, IDOL OnDemand is part of that overall HAVEn offering. And so, we definitely have done a lot to educate and kind of evangelize these capabilities to our partners.”

In fact, according to Cairns, many of HP’s partners are now building their own apps off the IDOL OnDemand API.

HAVEn allows companies to analyze and find meaning within their data. It can also identify data that is no longer needed so companies can place it in low-cost storage or get rid of it altogether. Ultimately, IDOL OnDemand adds to the capabilities that HAVEn offers.

See the entire segment below.