A Discovery Platform at the Speed of Today’s Business

I’ve talked before about a Discovery Platform as the staging ground for innovation and a data-driven laboratory where trends, connections and insights emerge under the watchful guidance of the data artist.  But anyone who knows Teradata knows that we are always thinking about extending the power of cutting-edge technology to the business user as well.  How, for instance, can the enterprise-level business analyst order up custom analytics without having to hire a corps of engineers or data scientists to do the programming?  I think we have built the answer in the Teradata Aster Discovery Platform 6, a faster and easier way for a broad group of users to analyze data and generate high-impact business insights. 

Teradata Aster Discovery Platform 6 is the industry’s first Discovery Platform to operate as an integrated solution optimized for diverse analytics, optimal speed and minimal effort.  Previous approaches to running analytics sequentially have been very development intensive and cumbersome for business users.  Now there is greater accessibility in Teradata’s revolutionary SNAP™ Framework(SNAP)that enables users to simply “snap” together multiple analytic engines and run them on a single query in SQL.  This takes the complexity out of creating ensemble analytic engines at petabyte scale and puts the benefits of data-driven insights into more hands. 

Teradata has added a new engine to its portfolio to support SNAP Teradata SQL-GR™.  This engine combines with SQL and MapReduce engines to rapidly ingest and analyze large amounts of raw data from the storage system built especially for data discovery - Teradata Aster File Store™.  Our new cross-engine optimization and processing innovations let users run multiple analytic techniques simultaneously, and with high performance and scalability. 

Scalability is indeed a key advantage, and nowhere it is on display more fully than with our approach to SQL-Graph.  Unlike many other systems, our SQL-GR engine is deeply integrated with a relational database, making it fully scalable and not limited by the constraints of memory.  Our Graph engine is also designed to go beyond simple navigation and into the realm of analysis, capable of tracking complex patterns to extract insights and value from data. 

We’re talking about advanced analytics at the speed and accessibility of today’s business environments.  A lot of businesses can’t hire specialized employees with scarce, expensive skillsets in order to extract value from big data, and they shouldn’t have to.  We make it easier to run advanced analytics for things like personalized product offers, customer segmentation, understanding product affinity, detecting fraud, using recommendation engines and identifying customer churn.  A closer look at practical use cases shows how Discovery Platform 6.0 can help with social graphs and identifying influencers and their connections; fraud detection, where graph and path analysis glean insights on suspect activities and help predict future cases of fraud; and predictive modeling to chart and reduce customer churn. 

Take that last example of customer churn.  Our use cases include a telecommunications company that is able to detect behavioral churn by seamlessly combining pre-built Graph + Path + Text + Statistical Predictive Analysis engines.  By analyzing ALL data from all channels of interaction, the company gains a 360° view of its customers and identifies key patterns of behavior that lead to churn.  These insights can power proactive steps to reach out and save profitable at-risk customers.  The beauty of Teradata Aster Discovery Platform 6.0 is that these processes happen concurrently, and without the need for a room full of engineers to orchestrate things.  While maintaining the optional complexity for die hard data artists, our Discovery Platform 6.0 provides the SNAP framework to help construct the ensemble.  So the business user gains control without the confusion. 

Teradata Aster Discovery Platform 6 comes at a time when some of our own research shows an increasing awareness of data-driven decision-making and its benefits.  I’ll be talking more in coming weeks about a Teradata-commissioned IDC study showing organizations that use data in decision-making are more productive, more profitable and more likely to be considered leaders in their industries.  Especially with Teradata Aster Discovery Platform 6, I’m proud to say that Teradata is delivering the tools today to help more and more companies realize these benefits. 

Gage

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As President of Teradata Labs, I provide visionary direction for all innovation, research and development, and sales support activities related to Teradata integrated data warehousing, big data analytics, and associated solutions.