Big Data is transforming businesses across the globe. With the enormous availability of structured and unstructured data, companies are looking for data-driven decisions which are now possible through real-time big data insight. This is where Big Data-as-a-service (BDaaS) is changing the game for companies of all sizes. BDaaS allows businesses to leverage variability cost. They can initially invest a small amount of money and as they see success, they can invest some more.
New-age companies are adopting BDaaS as a standard. The need for BDaaS is driven at both the CIOs and the business level. CIOs are pushed to enable such technology capabilities from business owners who want to be empowered with insight. Many companies have started offering cloud-based big data services to help organisations solve their data challenges. The global business spends on cloud-based data analytics services is expected to increase from the present 15% to 35% in 2021, which means the service providers have an excellent opportunity to offer Big Data-as-a-service.
The service providers have multiple ways to address the Big Data market with as-a-service offerings, which can be characterised by a level of abstraction, from infrastructure to analytics software. These include Cloud Infrastructure – leveraging Infrastructure-as-a-service, particularly Computer-as-a-service and Software-as-a-service; Data Management Services – which includes Platform-as-a-service, Data-as-a-service and Database-as-a-service. BDaaS addresses the challenges of big data processing to increase enterprise competitiveness, productivity and stability through the insightful implementation of valuable information.
There are multiple benefits of Big Data-as-a-service solutions for companies. Firstly, the technology does not involve upfront infrastructure, data storage and management cost. It leverages multiple cloud infrastructures to collect, preserve and analyse data in real time with easy access to raw data in dispersed storage; where users can easily share and recover data in the cloud. Moreover, with increased flexibility and customization to manipulate the data, it leads to improved data management and accessibility to complex data analysis and alteration. Most importantly, it enables companies to focus on the business side of Big Data, in which the service providers become responsible for the technical aspects. Smaller organisations and growing businesses need not invest in training and building a team of data professionals, as the whole technology gets outsourced. Lastly, the responsibility of both security and compliance of the data rests with the BDaaS service providers.
On the other hand, there is an enormous skilled workforce talent gap which service providers need to address. While there is an increase in demand for specialised skills for Cloud Infrastructure, Data Storage, Computing and Data Management, there are limited skilled professionals available in the market to meet this growing demand. Secondly, BDaaS provides easy access to the data and analytics services in the data analytics layer which can lead to potential manipulation of data by external users which can impact the business.
Looking to the future, it is going to be both common and advantageous for organisations to have their data in cloud-based systems. Data gathering and exploration continue to expand and lead to more businesses understanding the potential of data-driven business intelligence. With the increased amounts of big data fluctuating, companies can employ available BDaaS techniques and services to sustain and succeed in the competitive environment. However, it is not right to simply discard the traditional methods as against the new and emerging ones. For companies to stay relevant, they must transfer into the advanced and active business management to survive in the market.
