It’s been a busy couple of weeks for us in big data land. One thing that struck me is how much we learned about the big data and analytics space after hours at Strata Hadoop, and sometimes that can be just as exciting as what we learn during the sessions. I have a couple of videos I like to share with you to prove my point.

In this video, I learned some things from Jim Scott, MapR. First, MapR is providing –and get ready because it’s a mouthful—“ an online, Interactive, platform neutral, vendor agnostic training” — and some cool use cases of a Hadoop cluster in a briefcase.

It’s also fun to get together with our various partners and talk about the great solutions we are doing together. In this video, I have MapR and Platfora do all the work. Hey it was after hours!

Webinar At A Glance

Want to learn more about what we are doing with our partners? Check out the Webinar At A Glance from our recent Big Data webcast, “Analytics Solutions for Driving Better Business Outcome,” which is available on demand now. The feedback has been amazing and we plan to do more of these with our partners in the future.

Have some interesting stories or solutions you would like to share? Find me on Twitter, @JimMcHugh, we can work together to get the news out.

Tags: analytics, Big Data, BigData, CiscoUCS, MapR, Platfora, Splunk, Strata Hadoop World, unified computing system

Around the world, banking customers express similar frustrations: they believe the value they receive from their banks is declining, at a time when their trust in those banks already has eroded.

What’s more, according to a Cisco survey of 7,200 banking customers in 12 countries, four out of five customers would trust a non-bank, such as a technology company or retailer, to handle their banking needs. Some of those disruptive competitors are succeeding where banks fail: by engaging customers with convenient transactions and value-added services.

The Cisco study found that Internet of Everything (IoE)-enabled services can help restore the value customers expect from banking institutions. IoE — the networked connection of people, process, data and things — makes it possible for banks to offer a more relevant, engaging, and convenient experience for customers.

Of the $19 trillion in global economic value Cisco estimates IoE can create over the next decade, 7 percent ($1.3 trillion) is accounted for in the finance market and could be addressed with concepts included in this survey.

The digitization of business and society is happening at a rapid pace and people are looking for improved, digital services that make life easier. Banks need to embrace this pace of change and deliver relevant services or risk becoming obsolete in a market where other providers are stepping in to fill the gaps.

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Tags: analytics, banking, CCS, Cisco, Cisco Consulting Services, data, digital, Financial Services, hyper-relevance, innovation, Internet of Everything, internet of things, IoE, IoT, Wim Elfrink

In the Internet of Everything Era (IoE), analytics will occur throughout the network—from the edge, to the core, in the cloud, and everywhere in between. Cisco is uniquely positioned to deliver intelligent networking infrastructure that acts as a flexible data plumbing footprint and control plane, giving our customers the flexibility to send analytics to the data source for IoT use cases that require real-time insights—as well as data to the analytics for use cases that require historical data.

The most powerful analytics solutions apply the combined power of an innovative infrastructure and analytics software solutions that are uniquely designed to optimize one another. Cisco’s analytics-ready infrastructure has been proven to provide a high-performance, flexible, and efficient foundation for leading data management, data integration, and analytics software.

• Cisco UCS Integrated Infrastructure for Big Data is an industry-leading platform widely adopted in the industry that helps organizations deploy and scale Big Data applications faster to drive the revenue side of the business while significantly reducing risk and TCO.
• Cisco UCS Integrated Infrastructure for Big Data is the first and only platform to post certified results for the new TPC Express Benchmark HS (TPCx-HS), which was developed to provide enterprises with a vendor-neutral way to evaluate the performance and price-to-performance of big data implementations. Cisco UCS Integrated Infrastructure for Big Data demonstrated outstanding performance and scalability at 1TB, 3TB, and 10TB scale factors.
• Cisco UCS Mini, ideal for processing analytics at the edge and branch offices, has earned industry recognition for innovation in furthering the development of the data center industry with the InfoTECH Spotlight Data Center Excellence Award for 2014.
• And, Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) and the Nexus 9000 also took home an InfoTECH excellence award adding additional proof of the strength of Cisco’s analytics-ready infrastructure. As analytics workloads increase in number, the network plays a critical role in ensuring that workloads are completed and insights are delivered on time, securely, and cost-effectively. Cisco ACI lets customers dynamically optimize cluster performance in the network, redeploy resources automatically for new workloads to improve utilization and lower TCO, and ensure isolation of users and data as resource deployments change.

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Tags: ACI, analytics, Big Data, UCS

In years past, a visit to the neighborhood bank branch often featured face-to-face meetings with a trusted advisor who would guide customers through their most challenging financial journeys — often over a cup of coffee. Today, many banks have ceded that privileged position of trusted advisor. While banks have made great strides in using technology to cut costs and streamline transactions, customer experience and engagement have suffered.

In a Cisco survey of 7,200 bank customers in 12 countries, 43 percent of customers said their primary bank does not understand their individual needs. As a result, many respondents feel that their choice is between bad financial advice or no advice all. Moreover, nearly one in four bank customers intend to choose another provider for their next financial product or service. Increasingly, that provider could be a non-bank such as Apple, PayPal, or a retailer. Four out of five customers would trust a non-bank to handle their banking needs.

Clearly, the perceived value that customers receive from banks is declining, along with their trust in banks to represent their interests. Banks are seen as commoditized — and replaceable — providers of transactions. Meanwhile, in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007-2008 and some well-publicized banking scandals, banks’ “trusted advisor” status has suffered. Moreover, it is easier than ever to switch to a non-bank that customers believe has a better understanding of their needs.

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Tags: analytics, banking, CCS, Cisco, Cisco Consulting Services, data, digital, Financial Services, hyper-relevance, innovation, Internet of Everything, internet of things, IoE, IoT

Today’s banking consumers are used to experiences that reflect their likes, dislikes, past histories, and even their future plans. But not always from their banks. These kinds of interactions are more common when buying an online book, streaming a movie, or planning a vacation. Despite numerous omnichannel initiatives, many banks continue to lag in providing contextual, relevant, and convenient experiences to their customers. And while many customers yearn for personalized financial guidance, a Cisco survey of 7,200 smartphone users and bank customers in 12 countries found that for too many bank customers, the choice is between no advice, or what they perceive to be generic advice delivered inconveniently.

As a result, bank customers often try to attain their most important financial goals on their own, via “friends” on social media, or from non-traditional providers of financial services. Moreover, since the financial crisis of 2007-2008, banks’ brand equity has fallen. Read More »

Tags: analytics, banking, CCS, Cisco, Cisco Consulting Services, data, digital, Financial Services, hyper-relevance, innovation, Internet of Everything, internet of things, IoE