IBM analytics tool targets data explosion

ROME: IBM has launched new software at its Information on Demand 2010 conference designed to help firms analyse and take advantage of the huge growth in data being generated by businesses and across the web.

InfoSphere BigInsights is powered by Apache Hadoop software, and has been created to allow businesses to understand trends and patterns in data.

The BigInsights Core allows organisations to more effectively store, archive and monitor "internet-scale volumes of data" being created by sites like Facebook and Twitter, the firm said.

The BigSheets system then allows businesses to take this information and extract trends and patterns to better understand and use the data to adapt and change business processes and models, according to IBM.

Rob Ashe, IBM's general manager for business analytics, claimed that the ability to monitor, analyse and handle data is vital in allowing companies to take advantage of an interconnected world.

"As the internet grows to two billion active users, firms need to be able to manage the information being created and draw benefits from it. Allowing them to do this is vital to help generate new revenues and create business models that work," he said.

"As more products become increasingly instrumented through the use of technologies like RFID tagging, the amount of data coming into organisations will only increase. Providing a flexible platform for analytics is key."

IBM claimed that business analytics is growing twice as quickly as any other area of IT, and that the company had spent US$11 billion (A$12.96 billion) acquiring firms with specific business analytic capabilities.

Revenues from these services are expected to reach US$15 billion (A$17.68 billion) by 2015, the firm said.

Arvind Krishna, general manager of information management at IBM, explained that InfoSphere BigInsights is therefore aimed at organisations of all sizes.

"Small firms using software from companies we have acquired should be reassured that IBM will continue to support and maintain their products as the rise in data will affect all businesses, irrespective of size," he said.