The industry as a whole has recognized the value of data-driven business, according to Google Inc.’s, Vishwas Agashe. The search giant’s Global Product Lead of Big Data Technologies visited theCUBE’s roving news desk at the Tableau Software, Inc.’s Data 14 Conference to talk with John Furrier and Jeff Kelly about the rising demand for Big Data-related products and the potential for more enterprise-level players to migrate to the cloud.

While Agashe recognized that Google, as Furrier put it, hadn’t been “touting the cloud,” the tech giant had made several announcements about its multiple layers of products. Agashe described Google’s product offerings as a “service cake” that includes infrastructure, software as a service, and platform as a service. When those services are aggregated in the cloud, it helps users address a huge diversity of workloads. Among those services, Agashe noted, “Big Data is a key product.”

The switch from using Big Data internally to services

Though Google used Dig Data internally for a long period of time, it wasn’t until 2010 that it started to package big data products. Agashe explained that enterprise-level customers wanted software that would help them solve problems similar to those Google faced. The Google cloud platform, he explained, is “a combination of hardware and software” that provides Google customers with the ability to scale to meet customer needs.

Moving from on-premise into the cloud

Responding to Kelly’s question, “What will it take for big data deployment to move to the cloud,” Agashe said that Google picked up on overall trends in the industry that suggest data-driven business will become more commonplace. The change hasn’t occurred right away because companies are still experimenting. And while experimenting, there’s no “upfront realization of return on investment,” Agashe said.

Advertising companies in particular realize that they need “an agile environment, one that makes use of previous investments,” he explained, observing more businesses coming to the conclusion that cloud might be a good fit. Agashe pointed out that cloud is scalable, cost-effective, and doesn’t force companies to replace their current investments — either people or technology. As more companies get into Big Data, Agashe thinks they will realize that cloud “just fits into the ecosystem.”

How does Tableau change BI?

Tableau is one of the systems that Agashe thinks will change the way companies think about business models and their money-making methodologies. Tableau, Agashe said, enhances agility, empowers the line of business, and is attractive because of its self-service qualities.

The tech environment is changing quickly, and Tableau is a tool that businesses can use to see “what’s in front of them.” Because it allows business-minded folks and markets to push data to compute without IT, it allows them to focus on their own expertise.

Google-Tabelau partnership

GCloud, Agashe said, is similarly focused on user experience. It also enables business people without deep technical knowledge to take advantage of technology services. The two companies make a good fit because their products work well in concert. Tableau helps provide visualization and storytelling alongside Google’s Big Data products, Agashe explained: It “helps customers get more value.”

Both companies also offer “freemium” options for their services. Tableau’s basic level of services are free, and Google offers a free tier. At cloud.google.com, Agashe said, folks can log in to access the ability to query up to a terabyte of free data every month.

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