Demand for Business Intelligence and Analytics Hits Tipping Point

Gartner, known worldwide for its research and projections, predicted several years ago that data center managers would be swamped with a flood of demands for resources related to business intelligence and analytics.

It appears that time has arrived, with Gartner recently announcing that the shift from the old way of things to the more modern business intelligence and analytics platform has reached “a tipping point.”

The numbers back up that statement. The research firm reported that global revenue in the business intelligence and analytics market is forecast to reach $16.9 billion in 2016 — up 5.2 percent from 2015.

“Organizations must transition to easy-to-use, fast and agile modern BI platforms to create business value from deeper insights into diverse data sources,” said Ian Bertram, managing vice president at Gartner.

The way Gartner puts it, that development represents an ongoing transition from analytics gathered from IT-led system-of-record reporting to business-led self-service analytics. It’s all designed to make the process of accessing data easier, faster and more agile under the modern BI and analytics platform. As a result, these platforms are providing deeper insights from varied data sources.

For data center operators, this all translates into further demands for data center capacity. As a result, they will need to be creative in taking ownership of the new projects materializing from the expanded use of data.

“They need to become the trusted partners or service brokers to advise the business where the production services should be sourced from,” said Gartner’s managing VP Milind Govekar. “That means traditional data centers or cloud or outsourced to a third party.”

When navigating your choices for meeting these demands, take into account your company’s budget and ability to expand with an in-house build versus outsourcing. For larger companies, an in-house solution may be more viable than it is for smaller to mid-sized companies. However, an increasing number of companies, both large and small, are using a mix of options.

Lifeline Data Centers, which provide colocation solutions in the Midwest, is dedicated to providing clients with secure and quality data center solutions. Contact us to find out how we can meet your data center needs.

Other resources:

• Infographic: The 22 Data Center Compliance Acronyms You Need to Know
• White Paper: Why Data Center Compartmentalization is Important
• Lifeline One Sheet: What You Need to Know About Lifeline Data Centers

Alex Carroll

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Alex, co-owner, is responsible for all real estate, construction and mission critical facilities: hardened buildings, power systems, cooling systems, fire suppression, and environmentals. Alex also manages relationships with the telecommunications providers and has an extensive background in IT infrastructure support, database administration and software design and development. Alex architected Lifeline’s proprietary GRCA system and is hands-on every day in the data center.