The Fifth Elephant 2012

Data drives eveything we do. Without it, everything stops. Literally. This swamp of data we are both floating and sinking is not really new. What is new is that the enormous amounts of data is now at our fingertips. It is not stored away and at rest. We are at the dawn of a golden period of gaining insights from this data that could not have been possible even five years ago. This talk will take stock of where we are today and extrapolate what is possible and what is most likely.

Outline

• as tech matures, the steady state has to be with data
• data (owned or mined or both) is the basis of making decisions
• the quality of decisions is highly influenced by the quality of
  data both in terms of accuracy and timeliness
• the “big data” meme creates opportunities for algorithmic and
  hueristic research which can lead to products and services that
  cannot be possible with any conventional methods
• the only cost effective means to get to these abilities is if the
  underlying architecture of hardware and software are both standards
  based and open source.
• the ability to derive simple insights from very large amounts of
  data (for example fractals)

Requirements

an open mind

Speaker bio

Head of Community Architecture and Leadership, Red Hat.