Businesses have put their trust in the cloud, with many offloading their most critical operations to the cloud. As the CEO of iTelecom, I talk a lot about the cloud, including IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service), the form of cloud computing that delivers fundamental compute, storage and networking resources on demand.
Cloud-based products and services have increased the computing capabilities that enable the collection of massive amounts of data. Data is now the oil that fuels today’s business growth, but it can be difficult and overwhelming to determine how to derive meaning from all of this data.
Growing Clouds Bring a Data Deluge
Now, meet another IaaS – Insights-as-a-Service. Insights-as-a-Service has emerged as a concept in analytics and provides solutions for data processing problems through in-depth analytics in the cloud.
Most businesses face the challenge of how to best extract value from all of the data collected. The two primary categories of data that need to be morphed into meaning are 1) structured data, which is quantifiable, clearly defined, and searchable, and 2) unstructured data, which is usually stored in its native format and is qualitative. Structured data is easy to search and analyze, while unstructured data requires more work to process and understand.
Powerful Storm Clouds
The power to combine data and produce insights is what is differentiating many companies from their competitors. Insights-as-a-service offers a variety of advantages to companies that are using data to their benefit.
This IaaS leverages predictive analytics and even finds other sources of data to answer specific business questions. It also enables companies to save money by reducing the need for data professionals and the complex infrastructure required to run analytics on-site.
Blizzard of Solutions
Both types of IaaS have elevated business intelligence (BI) to new levels. BI emerged in the 1960s as a system of sharing information across organizations. In the 1980s, analysts could begin to use IT-reliant service solutions to produce computer models for decision making.
Today, the cloud has become the de-facto standard platform for storing and processing vast amounts of data. Cloud computing has drastically advanced our ability to manipulate data into insights and has produced a more modern expression of BI. IaaS combines business analytics, data mining, data visualization, data tools and infrastructure, and best practices to help companies make more precise data-driven decisions. Companies use these insights to drive change, eliminate inefficiencies, and quickly adapt to market or supply changes.
Do you need advice about what cloud solutions may be best for you? The iTelecom team is here to help you sort through all those acronyms!
