One way to access data efficiently and accelerate the development and deployment of analytics apps is to build an API. APIs are a natural way to access data, whether it be personalization scores for web content or a service to assess the risk of a part failing. There are a number of benefits to using an API for data access. First, it restricts the user to efficient requests. Google Analytics is a prime example. A query API gives you access to the rich data in your Google Analytics instance. While the API is fairly flexible, it allows Google to more… [Continue Reading]
According to Gartner, more than half of all big data projects fail to make it beyond the pilot stage. It’s important to consider what it takes to make big data projects successful in a production environment and to ensure you’re building in the right elements from the outset to support your big data initiatives. If you’ve had a successful pilot, it’s a good time to step back and generalize and reexamine any expedient choices you may have made. And if you’re not yet to the pilot stage, even better -- you can build your pilot on sound principles and a… [Continue Reading]