Data Analytics on Cloud

Data Analytics

Data analytics is a discipline focused on extracting insights from data. It comprises the processes, tools and techniques of data analysis and management, including the collection, organization, and storage of data. The chief aim of data analytics is to apply statistical analysis and technologies on data to find trends and solve problems. Data analytics has become increasingly important in the enterprise as a means for analyzing and shaping business processes and improving decision-making and business results.

Data analytics draws from a range of disciplines — including computer programming, mathematics, and statistics — to perform analysis on data in an effort to describe, predict, and improve performance. To ensure robust analysis, data analytics teams leverage a range of data management techniques, including data mining, data cleansing, data transformation, data modeling, and more.

Types of Data Analytics

  • 1. Descriptive analytics: What has happened and what is happening right now? Descriptive analytics uses historical and current data from multiple sources to describe the present state by identifying trends and patterns. In business analytics, this is the purview of business intelligence (BI).

  • 2. Diagnostic analytics: Why is it happening? Diagnostic analytics uses data (often generated via descriptive analytics) to discover the factors or reasons for past performance.

  • 3. Predictive analytics: What is likely to happen in the future? Predictive analytics applies techniques such as statistical modeling, forecasting, and machine learning to the output of descriptive and diagnostic analytics to make predictions about future outcomes. Predictive analytics is often considered a type of “advanced analytics,” and frequently depends on machine learning and/or deep learning.

  • 4. Prescriptive analytics: What do we need to do? Prescriptive analytics is a type of advanced analytics that involves the application of testing and other techniques to recommend specific solutions that will deliver desired outcomes. In business, predictive analytics uses machine learning, business rules, and algorithms.

Best Uses of Data Analytics

  • Social Media: A popular use for cloud data analytics is compounding and interpreting social media activity. Before cloud drives became practical, it was difficult processing activity across various social media sites, especially if the data was stored on different servers. Cloud drives allow for the simultaneous examination of social media site data so results can be quickly quantified and time and attention allocated accordingly.

  • Tracking Products: Long thought of as one of the kings of efficiency and forethought, it is no surprise Amazon.com uses data analytics on cloud drives to track products across their series warehouses and ship items anywhere as needed, regardless of items proximity to customers. Alongside Amazon’s use of cloud drives and remote analysis, they are also a leader in big data analysis services thanks to their Redshift initiative. Redshift gives smaller organizations many of the same analysis tools and storage capabilities as Amazon and acts as an information warehouse, preventing smaller businesses from having to spend money on extensive hardware.

  • Tracking Preference: Over the last decade or so, Netflix has received a lot of attention for its DVD delivery service and the collection of movies hosted on their website. One of the highlights of their website is its movie recommendations, which tracks the movies users watch and recommends others they might enjoy, providing a service to clients while supporting the use of their product. All user information is remotely stored on cloud drives so users’ preferences do not change from computer to computer. Because Netflix retained all their users’ preferences and tastes in movies and television, they were able to create a television show that statistically appealed to a large portion of their audience based on their demonstrated taste. Thus in 2013, Netflix’s House of Cards became the most successful internet-television series ever, all thanks to their data analysis and information stored on clouds. Data Analytics in Cloud Computing technologyadvice The Best Uses of Data Analytics Quick Tip: Data analytics could become easier as SaaS becomes more popular, as customer information could become more centralized.

  • Keeping Records: Cloud analytics allows for the simultaneous recording and processing of data regardless of proximity to local servers. Companies can track the sales of an item from all their branches or franchises across the United States and adjust their production and shipments as necessary. If a product does not sell well, they do not need to wait for inventory reports from area stores and can instead remotely manage inventories from data automatically uploaded to cloud drives. The data stored to clouds helps make business run more efficiently and gives companies a better understanding of their customers’ behavior.