Data can be incredibly difficult to deal with, especially when it's coming in large waves. However, there are some wonderful ways to deal with big data that will allow you to save time. And saving time is a good thing — especially for bigger companies.
Tool 1 - Data Visualization
So you have the data, but what’s it saying? The best tool to utilize in order to utilize your data is data visualization tools (such as those provided by DataHero). These are things like graphs and other ways to visually show what the data is saying — such as a map showing where consumers are or are more likely to purchase. Since spreadsheets can be difficult to look at for a long time, and it can result in hours of time wasted, using ways to make it easy to visualize the data makes using it or interpreting it faster. Depending on the type of data you are trying to interpret, the visual should be different — i.e. using a scatter plot to compare two measurements, while a line graph would be better for something over time.
Tool 2 - Better Reports
If dealing with databases, you will have to spend hours searching. Or, you would have years and years ago. Now, you can simply buy a software that will help you do what you need to do in those databases. One of these tools is Jaspersoft BI Suite . However, to use Jaspersoft, you must already have an SQL table ready to be looked at by everyone. The software connects to the JasperReports Server — where it gets all its data.
Different storage platforms available on the Server include Cassandra, Redis, Riak, and Hadoop. Once it has the data you have asked it to find, you get to decide how the data is put into the tables. Queries for different CQL tables — like that for Cassandra's database — must be typed in by hand. More details can be asked for by typing in the new command. Once it has all been aggregated into one central location, using the visual tools spoken of before will be incredibly helpful.
Tool 3 - Graphical Code Generation
If you want to see the source code behind what you are doing, try using Talend Open Studio. This software links to salesforce.com and SugarCRM, among many other major products. TalendForge is also linked to Talend Open Studio, but they work well with Hadoop processing jobs. Data integration, quality, and management are all jobs you can do via the software, and you can do subroutine jobs for each of these three tasks as well.
It works by allowing you to drag icons to a canvas. By entering a command, you can see the source code. This allows you to actually see what is going on, and since no icon really does the code justice, it is a wonderful compromise that allows you to see what the program is doing under your command.
When using Talend, you can even do things like a "fuzzy match." The software has such a different feel to it that integration becomes much simpler. Then you can return to using the visualizations that work best for this kind of data and be on your way.
Tool 4 - Operational Intelligence
If you're looking for a different way to look at how you store and look up data, Splunk is the tool for you. This tool basically builds an index of what data you have, where it's stored, and when it was created. There are even different solution packages — such as a Microsoft Exchange monitoring system and one to detect Web attacks.
Data correlations are made much simpler when using Splunk. The data will be correlated between common server-side scenarios. It will happily deal with looking through log files for a specific text string. Clicking around allows you to dig deeper into the different data sets. You can even exchange data between systems and Splunk queries from Hadoop.