As data volumes continue to grow for enterprise firms, the need for automated tools to deal with those has risen as well.

Since its founding in 2014,  Io-Tahoe LLC has emerged as one of the many players helping companies manage and gain insights from rapidly expanding stores of information, primarily through the use of machine-learning algorithms to increase accuracy and speed in identifying often complex data elements and relationships.

The key for Io-Tahoe, along with other companies in the space, is to enable organizations to discover data across multiple technology platforms. In today’s multicloud and hybrid world, application programming interfaces have become an important means to do that.

This represents a useful path to market for Io-Tahoe, and its automated solutions have been integrated with major partners, such as Google, Amazon Web Services and Red Hat Inc. The firm’s ability to leverage APIs has helped open the door for a critical part of data discovery in the enterprise landscape, according to Ajay Vohora, Io-Tahoe’s chief executive officer.

“One of the trends that I wanted us to be part of was being open, having an open architecture,” said Vohora, during a June interview with theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. “I wanted to ensure we could openly plugin using APIs that were available.”

TheCUBE interviewed Vohora and other executives as part of Io-Tahoe’s SmartData Marketplaces event. Tune in on September 17, 2020, at 12:00 p.m. EST on thecube.net for Io-Tahoe’s livestream on SmartData Marketplaces. The company talks big data challenges and technology solutions in the healthcare industry with Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., followed by a deep dive with AWS on tools that leverage ML in data-exchange environments. (* Disclosure below.) 

Cost savings and monetization

The global data discovery market was valued at $7.75 billion in 2019, with growth estimated to reach $30 billion by 2027. The global enterprise data management market overall is expected to reach $146 billion by 2023, which gives Io-Tahoe plenty of opportunity for total addressable market expansion.

Data automation has gone beyond providing enterprises with a better understanding of stored information assets. It has also emerged as an opportunity for cost savings.

A research report issued last fall from Enterprise Management Associates found that AI-enabled analytics and data-management solutions could save companies $5 million per year, and that 83% of respondents were already realizing a positive cost benefit. This finding matches the experience of one Io-Tahoe customer. An independent study conducted in 2019 by Forrester Consulting found that Io-Tahoe delivered a projected 523% return on investment and benefits of $17 million over three years for one multinational Fortune 500 firm.

In addition to cost savings, enterprises are increasingly using automation of data assets to ensure there is a net payback for the business through monetization.

“The job of a chief data officer has gone from data quality and governance and compliance to really figuring out how data can be monetized,” said Dave Vellante, chief analyst at SiliconANGLE sister market research firm Wikibon Inc. and host of theCUBE. “It’s all about injecting intelligence and automation into the data lifecycle.”

Monitoring patient health

One field that has found an important use for AI-driven data management is healthcare. In September of last year, Clearsense LLC, a data platform-as-a-service built for the healthcare industry, announced the selection of Io-Tahoe to discover and catalog relationships based on medical and clinical data.

Clearsense is using the technology to quickly identify specific fields in medical records, such as allergies or medications. This helps more efficiently detect changes in patent health and optimize clinical outcomes.

“We have been able to analyze data sources with up to 7,000 tables and up to 300,000 columns,” said David Quickstad, vice president of product development for Clearsense, in a company statement last year. “More automation means more capability.”

In addition to expansion into healthcare and other verticals, Io-Tahoe has been actively growing its partner ecosystem. The company maintains its own SmartData Partner program, with value-added resellers, strategic and alliance partners as participants, and it became a member of OneTrust’s Data Discovery Partner program in 2019.

Io-Tahoe’s use of AI for enterprise data management has created opportunities to advance the field of metadata, or data about data. Last year, the company upgraded its data catalog to identify and tag specific information in data streams.

Catalogs usually require humans to apply metadata to underlying information. Io-Tahoe automated this process through the introduction of Smart Streaming Discovery. The goal was to help organizations move beyond manual metadata management.

“Customers like General Electric and Comcast have moved way beyond throwing people at the problem; that’s no longer possible,” said Vohora during an interview with theCUBE last year. “Creating metadata as an asset, just as a data warehouse would be, allows you to enable the rest of the organization.”

In addition to providing a more holistic view of metadata across the enterprise, Io-Tahoe has found itself at the forefront of another key trend: self-service data management.

Self-service is increasingly viewed as a way to enable software tools to be more productive and improve efficiency, based on a survey of business leaders released in early September. Io-Tahoe has taken a number of steps over the past two years to enable users with solutions to define rules and govern policies for key data elements.

“There’s a lot of pressure on data, a lot of demand on data to deliver more value to the business,” said Vohora during his June interview with theCUBE. “We’re injecting automation into the business processes that are going to drive a business to serve its customer.”

Livestream of Io-Tahoe SmartData Marketplaces digital event

The Io-Tahoe SmartData Marketplaces digital experience is a livestream event with additional interviews to be broadcast on theCUBE. You can also watch it on demand on theCUBE’s dedicated page and YouTube channel. (* Disclosure below.)

How to watch theCUBE interviews

We offer you various ways to watch the live coverage of Io-Tahoe SmartData Marketplaces digital event, including theCUBE’s dedicated website and YouTube channel. You can also get all the coverage from this year’s events on SiliconANGLE.

TheCUBE Insights podcast

SiliconANGLE also has podcasts available of archived interview sessions, available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify, which you can enjoy while on the go.

Guests who will be interviewed on theCUBE during the Io-Tahoe SmartData Marketplaces digital event

Guests who will be interviewed on theCUBE during the Io-Tahoe SmartData Marketplaces digital event include Ajay Vohora, chief executive officer of Io-Tahoe; Stuti Deshpande, solutions architect at Amazon Web Services; and Ved Sen, digital evangelist at Tata Consultancy Services.

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Io-Tahoe SmartData Marketplaces digital event. Neither Io-Tahoe LLC, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: Io-Tahoe LLC