What is a data ecosystem and what are its effects on an organization? Data ecosystems are a collection of devices, applications, people, and other components that together form a network or an ecosystem. As such, a data ecosystem consists of several key components, such as: software, hardware and other compute resources,workflows,users,market and infrastructure. By definition, a data ecosystem is a combination of open source software and hardware and networking and social media that creates a dynamic platform.
So what is a data ecosystem used for? Data is the essence of every business. Without data, businesses cannot exist. With it, they can thrive. However, having too much data and information can be troublesome. For this reason, data centers, storage area networks (SANs) and data providers provide the data needed by various business applications.
There are four major types of data ecosystems. They are legacy, open, digital and specific. Each has their own pros and cons. Although open and digital ecosystems have no internal barriers to innovation, legacy infrastructures do. On the other hand, specific ecosystems provide greater control.
An example of a data ecosystem with great internal barriers to innovation is the healthcare industry. Many diagnostic and treatment devices are designed for one manufacturer and standardized across many product teams. Thus, data must travel from one manufacturing team to another before it is used by end users. This causes significant delays. This leads to errors, unavailability of products or services and lost revenue.
Healthcare organizations should look for a data ecosystem that coordinates the design of analytics platforms and data integration and accesses real-time analytics data through the dashboard. Data should be available for easy aggregation by functional teams and consolidated in custom reporting and dashboards. The data needs to be able to be accessed from any device and customized reports need to be produced for each department.
Other examples of ecosystems include retailing, wholesale and logistics. Retail stores have an infrastructural environment that consumes data quickly to make informed decisions. Similarly, wholesale and logistics organizations have their own infrastructures that consume large amounts of data in order to improve customer satisfaction. These companies can benefit from aggregated and consolidated data and analytical tools. These same companies may also benefit from using open source analytics and data sharing technologies.
What is a data ecosystem? Analytics teams can contribute to this important concept by defining the types of data and the functions they will consume. This will facilitate the designing and building of useful dashboards, reporting and insights around key metrics. Healthcare organizations should consider how to design an integrated platform for data discovery, data ingestion and data manipulation.
Data models are the building blocks for any modern enterprise and understanding what is a data ecosystem can help you determine the right model for your organization. Without a data model, your applications may consume more processing power and memory than necessary. The incorrect type of data model can have an impact on the speed and accuracy of your reports and data analysis. Organizations that embrace data models will reduce costs related to wrong data modeling and implement solutions faster and at lower cost than if it was to implement an outdated data model.
As cloud computing grows and develops more capabilities your organization will need to move away from traditional data models and embrace a cloud model. A business intelligence data model is increasingly popular because it supports the use of a rich range of devices such as Pivotal, SaaS and Cloud Computing. It is an easy way to access real-time data from anywhere in the world. Cloud computing delivers critical business intelligence applications to help you make decisions quickly and with increased insight.
There are a number of open source solutions for data models in the open source community. This gives you the opportunity to contribute code to these programs and bring additional value to your organization. Many cloud companies are investing in open source tools and solutions to improve the overall quality and performance of their services. In fact, some of these companies have made major investments in proprietary tools in order to build out proprietary toolsets.
The question “what is a data ecosystem?” is very easy to answer when you look at how data has helped to dramatically change the face of companies around the world. Data has allowed for massive growth in profit levels, market penetration, and the ability for companies to communicate more effectively with their customers. In the end, the key is to provide your customers with the tools that they need and to manage their data appropriately. Cloud computing offers you the chance to do just this.
