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Hadoop is going through an irony

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Abhigna
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MUMBAI, INDIA: No formal conference or informal coffee conversation today in IT circles is able to escape the A word called Analytics. And yet, it is interesting when Gartner reminds us that less than 10 per cent of today's enterprises have a true information strategy. Its recent research poignantly underlines that the way business model thinking wasn't mainstream or well-rehearsed a decade ago, management thinking at an "information as strategy" level is too, yet evolving.

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It turns out that despite buzz words like Internet of Things, social media cornucopia or sensor-connected world; issues like the complexity, risk and opportunity presented by the information explosion flanks CEOs and CIOs alike.

Isn't it surprising and yet not so hard to absorb that most CIOs do not take responsibility for information policy, for new information acquisition or for information asset business exploitation? Or is it the CEO who has to fill these gaps?

The pages stay blank until we see answers and wise ways of inking Big Data the right way and using the right fonts with analytics. At the same time, criticisms and skepticism surround another hyped word called ‘Hadoop' for the conspicuous lack of right applications and deployments even now,

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In this interview, while we try to decipher why is everyone not on the same page with Hadoop; Darin Bartik, Executive Director of Product Management for Dell Software's Information Management Group, also takes us through some bookmarks punctuating this not-so-pulp fiction called BI and Analytics.

Information management usually has an abstract connotation while technology advancements on BI or analytics have filled the rows below very well. Is there a layer that stays a gap when it comes to blending these two levels seamlessly?

That is an evolution phase many customers are going through. BI is about ‘historical view of what-happened', and Analytics can present ‘what will happen' view. That definitely changes the way organizations treat data and grasp with the freshness of data. Try looking at it how customers look at data, with a real-time angle. Grab the data as it occurs and put it in the processing layer with pace. Let me give you Dell's own example with a line of desktops we launched. We were very excited about it but found initial sales not meeting our expectations. The old thumb rule could have meant lowering prices and trying other approaches. But we leaned on to social analytics and found improvement possibilities in the touch pad, thanks to the conversations from users. So without too much advertising or pricing changes, we managed to market it further.

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From what you can see where you stand, is the Analytics wagon for real or still a hype?

There is certainly a lot of hype around the subject and a lot of vendors have jumped on the bandwagon. Dell is confident and is seeing a lot of action from both services and hardware views. The approach is towards better answers, like with a retailer, we stepped back and tried to find how analytics equipped with cameras etc and tracking customer behavior can help the store service them better. It was a small spot which otherwise would have gone into oversight if not for analytics. We found that service personnel at trial room stage can make a lot of difference. That said, such changes need a strong top-down support and a different mindset. To take these recommendations towards execution takes a different kind of leadership.

With all the talk on Big Data, a market growing at 60 per cent as per IDC and fuelled with curiosity around Hadoop; is it still early to expect results in terms of production-ready solutions?

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It is absolutely production-ready. The irony is that answers like Hadoop are ready before organizations could be ready enough. Google, Amazon etc are companies that seem to answer even before the question pops up. Mostly, Hadoop is at the back-end of the system. And organizations are taking a reverse approach with Hadoop, they are focusing on the technology going with Hadoop cluster first and then moving to answers. But you have to ask the right questions first. I would advise customers to adopt it but in the right context. The right approach will fare better than ‘let's get it up and running' rush.

How does Hadoop's progress translate for Dell?

We help get intelligence out of it. With a lot of use-cases, we have covered a lot of road. What we study is about ‘what you are trying to accomplish' and the implementing it with Dell cloud and hardware, and getting it rolled out with data integration with a lot of capabilities that we have developed around Hadoop. We help companies go from start to finish with Hadoop, in short. It works by surrounding this environment with apt tools and stages.

You previously have held chair of vice president and general manager of Quest Software's database management business that was acquired by Dell. This fresh group that you steer, is it reflective of a bigger direction?

The software group is following the reorganization and reinvention effort at the company well enough. It's been a progress and we are expected to do more with end-to-end customer approach ahead. The transformation continues.