A few months back, in the post Time to Vorget about the three V’s,  I discussed how we need to shift from a technology centric three V’s description of big data to a business centric definition. I suggested that time to insight is the defining characteristic of big data,

At about the same time two of my colleagues in the data management space delivered similar thoughts.

Datameer CEO, and big data thought leader, Stefan Groschupf, talked about his dislike for the term “big data” in response to a question at the end of his Big Data predictions for 2015 webinar  In the webinar, which can be watched by following the link, he was asked whether big data had a role to play in small to medium businesses. The question, and Stefan’s complete answer can be heard from about 49:20 in the recording

His answer – big data is about the complexity of data, not the volume. Big data solutions add value by reducing this complexity, largely by reducing the requirement for complex schemas that are required for traditional BI. Big data solutions, especially Hadoop in the cloud, give both large and medium businesses the flexibility to deploy advanced analytics quickly and cost effectively – very similar to my “time to insight” proposal.

If you don’t have time for the webinar check out a summary of Stefan’s 2015 big data predictions on his blog.

In another post, Forrester Research analyst, Michelle Goetz, wrote an interesting analysis of where big data must go in her post: Beyond Big Data’s Vs: Fast Data Is More Than Data Velocity

In the post, Michelle talks about the paradigm shift that is necessary to make big data successful. She discussed the disconnect between the tech view of speed – faster hardware and provisioning – versus the business view of speed meaning “self-service data acquisition, faster deployment of data services, and faster changes”.

Michelle suggests that faster engines (in memory) simply delay the inevitable crash by a few years. Infrastructure is continuously getting quicker yet IT still cannot deliver on business needs quickly enough.

Her solution? “The speed at which insights are gained and ultimately how they are put to use is your data management strategy” or Fast Data

I am looking forward to the report which Michelle and her colleague, Noel Yuhanna, are working on is this regard.

There seems to be some consensus – any big data definition must be shaped around time to insight [Tweet this]

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