Ventana Research Analyst Perspectives

The data platforms market may appear to have little or nothing to do with haute couture, but it is one of the data sectors most strongly influenced by the fickle finger of fashion. In recent years, various architectural approaches to data storage and processing have enjoyed a phase in the limelight, including data warehouse, data mart, data hub, data lake, cloud data warehouse, object storage, data lakehouse, data fabric and data mesh. These approaches are often heralded as the next big thing,...

As I have previously explained, we expect an increased demand for intelligent operational applications infused with the results of analytic processes, such as personalization and artificial intelligence-driven recommendations. These systems rely on the analysis of data in the operational data platform to accelerate worker decision-making or improve customer experience.

I have previously written about the functional evolution and emerging use cases for NoSQL databases, a category of non-relational databases that first emerged 15 or so years ago and are now well established as potential alternatives to relational databases. NoSQL is a term used to describe a variety of databases that fall into four primary functional categories: key-value stores, wide-column stores, document-oriented databases and graph databases. Each is worthy of further exploration, which is...

The publication of Ventana Research’s 2023 Operational Data Platforms Value Index earlier this year highlighted the importance of incorporating analytic processing into operational applications to deliver personalization and recommendations for workers, partners and customers. This importance is being accelerated by interest in generative AI, especially large language models. The emergence of intelligent applications has impacted the requirements for operational data platforms with the need to...

I previously explained the arguments in favor of adoption of distributed SQL databases, the new generation of operational data platforms designed to combine the benefits of the relational database model and native support for distributed cloud architecture. It is critical for distributed SQL vendors to engage with developers to ensure they are considering the importance of resilience that spans multiple data centers and/or cloud regions as they choose the databases that will underpin...

The Office of Finance can be compared to a numbers factory where the main raw material, data, is transformed into financial statements, management accounting, analyses, forecasts, budgets, regulatory filings, tax returns and all kinds of reports. Data is the strategic raw material of the finance and accounting department. It is the key ingredient in every sale and purchase as well as every transaction of any description. Quality control is essential to achieving high standards of output in any...

The data platforms market has traditionally been divided between products specifically designed to support operational or analytic workloads, with other market segments having emerged in recent years for data platforms targeted specifically at data science and machine learning (ML), as well as real-time analytics. More recently, we have seen vendor strategies evolving to provide a more consolidated approach, with data platforms designed to address a combination of analytics and data science, as...

The recent publication of our Value Index research highlights the impact of intelligent applications on the operational data platforms sector. While we continue to believe that, for most use cases, there is a clear, functional requirement for either analytic or operational data platforms, recent growth in the development of intelligent applications infused with the results of analytic processes, such as personalization and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven recommendations, has increasing...

Success with streaming data and events requires a more holistic approach to managing and governing data in motion and data at rest. The use of streaming data and event processing has been part of the data landscape for many decades. For much of that time, data streaming was a niche activity, however, with standalone data streaming and event-processing projects run in parallel with existing batch-processing initiatives, utilizing operational and analytic data platforms. I noted that there has...

I recently wrote about the potential use cases for distributed SQL databases as well as techniques being employed by vendors to accelerate adoption. Distributed SQL is a term that is used by several vendors to describe operational data platform products that combine the benefits of the relational database model and native support for distributed cloud architecture, including resilience that spans multiple data centers and/or cloud regions. I noted that compatibility with existing database tools...