The Silicon Review ^Asia

American multinational technology company IBM recently announced a new platform with hope to make things easier. The new cloud-based platform, Dubbed Project DataWorks is the first to integrate all types of data and bring AI to the table for analytics, IBM said.

The Project DataWorks which is available on IBM’s Bluemix cloud platform aims to foster collaboration among the many types of people who need to work with data. Tapping technologies including Apache Spark, IBM Watson Analytics and the IBM Data Science Experience launched in June, the new offering is designed to give users self-service access to data and models while ensuring governance and rapid-iteration capabilities. Not only this, it can also ingest data faster than any other data platform, from 50 to hundreds of Gbps, deriving from sources including enterprise databases, the internet of things (IoT) and social media, according to IBM.

Derek Schoettle, general manager of cloud data services for IBM Analytics, in an interview, said “Analytics is no longer something in isolation for IT to solve. In the world we’re entering, it’s a team sport where data professionals all want to be able to operate on a platform that lets them collaborate securely in a governed manner.”

“Users can open any data set in Watson Analytics for answers to questions phrased in natural language, such as “what drives this product line?” Whereas often a data scientist might have to go through hundreds of fields manually to find the answer, Watson Analytics allows them to do it near instantaneously,” IBM said.

“More than 3,000 developers are working on the Project DataWorks platform, Some 500,000 users have been trained on the platform, and more than a million business analysts are using it through Watson Analytics.” Schoettle added.

Available now, the software can be purchased through a pay-as-you-go plan starting at US$75 per month for 20GB. Enterprise pricing is also available.

“Broadly speaking, this brings two things to the table that weren’t there before,” said Gene Leganza, a vice president and research director with Forrester Research.