Effective use of data is essential for businesses, to the point where an Accenture study found that 79% of enterprise executives believe that not embracing Big Data could lead to a company’s extinction.
Not all businesses have the time or ability to dig into that data, though. That’s where Data as a Service comes into the picture. Read on for 5 things you should know about this option.
1. What Is Data as a Service?
Data as a Service (DaaS) is a cloud-based approach to managing and accessing data that’s critical to your business. Data as a Service companies simplify the approach to data management, and they support user access from any location, making them attractive for a remote workforce.
2. How Is DaaS Used?
Data as a Service provider help make complex information easier to understand. They do all the heavy lifting of data collection, collation, and analytics, leaving you free to focus on your business.
When the analysis is finished, the providers present you with the relevant results in a straightforward way. You can then apply that information to your business and get the benefits without having to struggle for the data.
DaaS covers a wide range of uses. Some Data as a Service examples are:
- Geography data services to use for maps
- Financial data services
- Retail data analysis
You can visit AggData or search on other data providers to learn more.
3. Data as a Service Architecture
In a DaaS model, the data from multiple sources doesn’t get moved into a central repository. Instead, these solutions work by connecting the existing data sources with the tools used to consume the data, such as Business Intelligence tools for analytics.
This approach allows the separation of data storage and data usage, giving you more flexibility. Most providers also publish the data in real-time using application program interfaces (APIs).
4. Benefits of DaaS
Similar to other cloud solutions, DaaS has several benefits.
Since data can be accessed on an as-needed basis, your company has more agility. You can review the information regularly and act quickly on the results.
The data services provide quality control of the data, which means you end up with cleaner data as a starting point.
This is also a cost-effective approach. You don’t need to host the data yourself, which saves on hardware and IT costs. User interfaces and applications can also be easily built on top of the presentation layer.
5. DaaS Challenges
Data as a Service has a few challenges as well.
As with any cloud-based approach, privacy is a key concern. This is especially true when the data is deep and related to business-critical functions.
Security presents another challenge since housing the data in the cloud leaves you more vulnerable. You’ll want to make sure robust security measures are in place if you go with a DaaS approach.
Data governance can also be difficult to manage. The integrity of the data is critical, but verification is sometimes hard to implement.
Data as a Service Has Much to Offer
Data as a Service is still an emerging solution, but it has a lot to offer. You have a lot more agility and access to your data, as well as easy visibility to data analytics. If you haven’t worked with Big Data yet, this could be a good fit for your company.
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