UPDATED 16:58 EDT / MAY 03 2017

INFRA

The irony of real-time analytics and why data needs refinement

Raw data is messy, unorganized and disparate. As with any raw material, however, data can be refined. Once fit for commerce, data can build models, answer questions and write code in real-time. The irony is that this gate-checking process of determining which data can contribute to analytics is itself an act of analysis.

During today’s Micron Summit in New York, this topic and more were analyzed during the event keynote address. According to Darren Thomas, vice president of the Storage Business Unit at Micron Technology Inc., the message surrounding big data is about insights, including driving useful analytics output from the staggering amounts of data that are expected in the coming years.

“We’ve got to go from raw data to insightful real-time analytics,” Thomas said. “The data is too great for you to wait while the search is going on.” In order for data to be valuable, it has to be analyzed, and since these are real-time data creations being processed, the ideal is for them to be analyzed in real-time, he added.

With 163 zettabytes (or 163 trillion gigabytes) of collective data predicted by 2025, and approximately 75 percent of the world’s population set to be connected to the global information network by that time, the value of data will largely be determined by the ends to which it’s put, according to Thomas. But for meaningful usage, there will first need to be architectures in place that can scale and ingest such quantities as a matter of regular practice.

In addition, data operatives, or any company that wants to draw on that asset, will need to understand the nature and context of their data sources, Thomas explained. As mobile phones and advanced CPUs allow people to develop content at higher rates, machines are now creating content as well, with Internet of Things devices allowing connectivity from refrigerators, security cameras, cars and other objects traditionally thought of as relatively simple appliances.

Thomas then gave the stage to Laura DuBois, vice president of enterprise storage, server and system infrastructure software at International Data Corp., for her address focusing on “Uncovering Insight Through Research,” with an emphasis on the impact data is having on traditional infrastructure.

“It’s increasingly a focus on data that makes the difference between a company that’s surviving and a company that’s going to thrive and outperform its competitors,” DuBois said. She highlighted the connected nature of popular businesses, such as Starbucks, the “New York Times” and Pandora, and the way in which their assessment of customer retention, interaction and acquisition data is pushing their data analytics investments forward.

Digital transformation and business and data growth are having a driving effect on strategies, DuBois said. “There’s never been a lack of data, and there never will be,” she said. But for practically all companies taking part in data ops advancement, the biggest challenges will be in meeting performance needs, ensuring data protection and handling data governance, she added.

Purchasing new architecture, flash arrays and more storage capacity are responses that have been taken, but in DuBois’ view, as an increasing number of workloads moved to shared flash-based storage and the “rise of rack-scale architecture” continued, the evolving usability of Micron’s NVMe over Fabric would have a fundamental impact on the development of data environments at large.

Futures for flash and fabric

“We think flash brings the most valuable economic advantage,” said Eric Endebrock, vice president of storage marketing, at Micron. He added that Micron sees flash as “that technology foundation that’s going to take things to the next level.”

As they assess and work to meet customer needs with a tailored response, Micron is “rewriting and tuning all the way from the top down to the bottom in our firmware,” Endebrock stated.

And as the company prepares for the drastic upswing in data velocity, variety and volume, NVMe over Fabric will be a key solution that they expect to accelerate adoption in real-time cases. “Microseconds are very important to us,” he said, adding that they have a goal of minimizing latency, which leads them to build with multi-tenant environments in mind.

“Solid-scale is an architectural umbrella,” Endebrock concluded. “This isn’t the last step; this is a performance step.”

Next up during the keynote, Brad Spiers, principal solutions architect at Micron, discussed some of the advantages and development targets on which Micron is focusing, with aims of “matching the silicon to the problem we faced.” He was joined by Steve Pawlowski, vice president of advanced computing solutions at Micron, who came onstage to explicate some of the power and technical aspects of Micron’s compute and data handling in a segment highlighting “Driving Machine Learning Insights.”

Mark Glasgow, vice president of enterprise sales at Micron Technology, also contributed to the discussion, with notes on “Delivering Real World, Real(time) Insights.” He stated, “We are going to continue to work with our OEM partners,” adding that Micron will also begin doing business relationships that are directly tailored to the needs and context of its partners.

“We at Micron feel like we have a lot of room to run and to innovate,” he said. And with increasingly diversified workload environments, “These are all very exciting opportunities for us,” he added.

A trio of panelists then came onstage to share their perspectives on Micron’s relevance. These speakers included Don Duet, former partner, head of Technology Division, at Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.; Justin Stottlemeyer, director, distinguished engineer storage and compute at Intuit Inc.; and Trevor Schulze, chief information officer of Micron.

They addressed the changes that flash and NVMe over Fabric have had on individual businesses and the larger environment, along with their expectations of how things will change to handle the increased speed and reliability. Noting that agility and flexibility have become core values, they placed high expectations on the near future for database-driven architecture.

Watch the complete keynote video below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s independent editorial coverage of Micron Summit 2017. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner at the Micron Summit. The conference sponsor, Micron, does not have editorial oversight of content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

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