Data has become the lifeblood of modern organizations: it is the foundation of what drives businesses and helps them thrive in today’s hyper-connected and customer-centric economy. In a forecast by IDC, a premier global market intelligence firm, the “global datasphere” (defined as the sum of all data created, copied, and consumed in a year) is expected to reach 163 zettabytes by 2025 — which translates to over a trillion gigabytes of data. This meteoric rise in data means that organizations (especially those that have embraced the cloud application business model) have numerous opportunities to gain an advantage in the market. On the other hand, this also means that now, more than ever, businesses require the speed, agility, and scale needed to manage the accelerating influx of information and deliver the best customer experiences.
DataStax, the leader in data management for cloud applications, believes that in order for businesses to achieve better business outcomes, it’s critical to move away from the traditional technology infrastructure they currently use to build and deploy their mission-critical cloud applications. Instead, a modern, distributed database platform that not only supports massive amounts of data but also provides continuous availability and real-time access to it is now a business’ best weapon to grow and succeed. And DataStax offers just the right solution for this: DataStax Enterprise. Built on top of Apache Cassandra, DataStax Enterprise is a database platform purpose-built to address the performance and availability demands of Internet of Things (IoT), web and mobile applications.
SourceForge recently spoke with Andrew Lampitt, Sr. Director of Product Marketing at DataStax, to discuss the importance of Data Management. Lampitt also talks about what makes DataStax Enterprise an excellent platform for managing the extraordinary data demands of today’s leading cloud applications.
Q: Please tell us more about DataStax as a data management platform provider. How are you empowering today’s modern enterprises through your solutions?
A: DataStax provides data management for geo-distributed, real-time applications that power the right-now enterprise.
With more than 400 customers in over 50 countries, DataStax provides data management to the world’s most innovative companies, such as Netflix, Safeway, ING, Adobe, Intuit, and eBay. DataStax was founded in 2010 and is based in Santa Clara, California.
Andrew Lampitt, Sr. Director of Product Marketing at DataStax
Built on the best distribution of Apache Cassandra™, DataStax Enterprise (DSE) is the always-on data platform designed to allow enterprises to effortlessly build and scale apps, integrating graph, search, analytics, administration, developer tooling, and monitoring into a single unified platform.
Most recently, we announced DataStax Managed Cloud, which is a white glove, fully managed service to accelerate time to market. It is the easiest way to quickly scale any essential application without having to divert valuable resources for operations management.
Q: What does Data Management mean to you? And why should it matter to today’s businesses?
A: According to The Economist, the world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data. This is true because the speed of business has accelerated from months, weeks, minutes to ‘now.’ In addition, by 2020 there will be 20.8 billion connected things (IoT) that will be in use worldwide (source: Gartner). And, at the same time, customer expectations have dramatically changed as well. Customers expect individual and instant experiences. They want relevancy, availability, responsiveness, accessibility, and engagement.
We call this the ‘right-now’ economy.
The right-now economy is about micro-moments that define customer delight and business success. This has impacted every part of the enterprise and has created unprecedented demands on data, which is now the most valuable business resource. Data infrastructures have to adapt to this demand and the rise of the cloud or be left behind.
Q: What do you believe are the key characteristics that an organization should look for when it comes to choosing a data management platform?
A: Enterprises must look for a data management platform that is proven to be: Contextual, Always-on, Real-time, Distributed and Scalable.
Q: One of Datastax’s products is DataStax Enterprise, an always-on data platform. What is it, and how does it work?
A: DataStax Enterprise (DSE) accelerates the ability of enterprises, government agencies, and systems integrators to power the exploding number of cloud applications that require data distribution across data centers and clouds, by using our secure, operationally simple platform.
DSE brings high-performance operational analytics, simplified security management for multi-tenant applications, and graph data to the forefront while eliminating complexity and downtime in a comprehensive data platform.
Relational database management systems have been around for a long time now – nearly 40 years. They’re still useful for certain things, but the way we produce and use data has changed so much over the last 10 years that what was once the ‘tried and true’ to do data management is now becoming a struggle at best.
What’s become clear is that relational database management systems fail when it comes to handling distributed cloud applications. Enterprises need an ‘always-on’ data management platform like DataStax Enterprise (DSE), which is able to handle today’s more powerful cloud apps.
Q: How does DataStax help organizations protect and drive more value from their data?
A: DataStax solves pressing data demands in two primary areas:
- Customer Experience – We help enterprises with a Customer 360 view, Personalization, Recommendations, Consumer fraud detection, Loyalty and Identity management.
- Enterprise efficiency & optimization – We help with Inventory management, Supply chain, Logistics, Asset monitoring, Security & compliance, and e-commerce.
We have great customer success stories from Netflix, Comcast, and eBay to name a few.
Q: What type of security does DataStax Enterprise offer to customers?
A: DSE provides real-time analysis, for real-time protection. Whether it’s trying to get to the source of a major network attack or detecting an intrusion happening right now, security use cases consume massive amounts of data and require a solid but nimble data foundation.
For example, our customer ProtectWise says: “ProtectWise offers our customers a new utility model for security, powering real-time, retrospective and automated threat detection for the enterprise, cloud, and industrial control environments — delivered entirely from the cloud, powered by DataStax.”
Q: The wants and needs of today’s customers have drastically changed due to the advent of smartphones and the availability of real-time responses. How is DataStax addressing the customer experience challenge?
A: Customer Experience (CX) initiatives, while a top corporate focus for many organizations, have proven problematic to implement. A key challenge has been the data infrastructures that have kept data siloed and made things like creating a real-time, comprehensive, 360-degree view of a customer extremely difficult. Thus, making it impossible to meet the demands of consumers’ extreme expectations and the “right-now” economy.
Here are four main customer experience use cases, and how to achieve each with the appropriate use of data:
- Customer 360: Having a seamless and holistic view of all customers across every touchpoint and business unit.
- Personalization & Recommendations: Using Customer 360 to provide contextual, highly personalized experiences in real time, including extremely tailored product and service recommendations and offers.
- Loyalty programs: Create stronger relationships with real-time, value-added loyalty and rewards programs to delight, and retain loyal customers.
- Consumer Fraud Detection: Using your holistic view of robust data to know when something is amiss so that fraud is detected before it does serious damage.
These CX use cases happen through modern applications that are contextual, always on, real-time, distributed and scalable.
About DataStax
It starts with a human desire, and when a universe of technology, devices and data aligns, it ends in a moment of fulfillment and insight. Billions of these moments occur each second around the globe. They are moments that can define an era, launch an innovation, and forever alter for the better how we relate to our environment. DataStax is the power behind the moment. Built on the unique architecture of Apache Cassandra™, DataStax Enterprise is the always-on data platform and has been battle-tested for the world’s most innovative, global applications.
With more than 400 customers in over 50 countries, DataStax provides data management to the world’s most innovative companies, such as Netflix, Safeway, ING, Adobe, Intuit and eBay. Based in Santa Clara, Calif., DataStax is backed by industry-leading investors including Comcast Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Meritech Capital, Premji Invest and Scale Venture Partners. For more information, visit DataStax.com/customers or follow them on @DataStax.