“A substantial amount of the ‘Big Data’ discussion is relevant and interesting to organizations (as a practical matter) because of the advent of the “cloud,” said Alon Israely, Co-Founder & Manager, Strategic Partnerships, Business Intelligence Associates, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan, “especially as the deployment and implementation of many ‘Big Data’ systems rely on utility computing.”
Cloud Computing Journal: The move to cloud isn’t about saving money, it is about saving time – agree or disagree?
Israely: It’s about saving both time and money, but primarily it’s about saving money – when you save time, you save money. The advent of utility computing environments and distributed storage is very much about the economics that technology brings. Today, businesses can focus on spending more of their budgets (and time) on their core business and not on IT (e.g., IT assets, resources, etc.). Of course moving to the “cloud” also creates efficiencies around time spent on technical tasks – such as deployment of systems and applications, and allows for faster business processes because, for example, using web-based interfaces and smarter workflows – but since saving time translates directly to saving money, in the end it is primarily about saving money.