8 min read
No matter the industry or size of a business, the companies that will win in 2023 are those that focus on data. Yeah, we said it. The problem is, data volumes are exploding and the ways you can use data are growing even faster, so where do you start? TimeXtender can help.
Regardless of where you are in your data management journey, here are the top six trends in data engineering, science, and analytics to watch in 2023:
- Dealing With Real-Time Data
- The Fall of the Modern Data Stack
- Protecting Your Data
- Migrating Data to the Cloud
- Artificial Intelligence
- Data Architecture Improvements
Come along for the ride, won’t you?
1. DEALING WITH Real-Time Data
Prominent companies that deal with massive loads of public information have been using real-time data in order to enhance the safety of their clients. For instance, Meta and other social media sites crawl thousands of gigabytes of information every second (including all your cat photos). Analyzing real-time information has enabled social media sites to curb fake news before it spreads and learn which ads to display to different users depending on factors such as location.
Complex analytics and data infrastructure are often needed to work on real-time data, which often means more expensive data analytics tools. For example, financial institutions use real-time data in 2023 to monitor transactions as they happen across the globe, detecting early signs of fraud and eradicating it in its earlier stages.
In the batch vs. streaming debate, it’s important to remember that any time data is processed to ensure data quality and reliability, a certain amount of lag time is unavoidable. Because of this, real-time data stream processing is only suitable for very simple datasets and use cases, such as streaming website traffic, call volumes, stock prices, bank transactions, etc. There are simple tools that allow you to connect to these data sources to create real-time analytics dashboards.
TimeXtender focuses on batch processing, allowing for more thorough and accurate data cleansing, transformation, and modeling, making it the preferred method for more complex and mission-critical data analytics. The near real-time analytics that TimeXtender’s batch processing provides is more than sufficient to meet an organization’s needs in the vast majority of cases.
2. The Fall of the Modern Data Stack
Every data engineer is responsible for ensuring that the different platforms that make up the modern data stack (MDS) work properly. However, the issue is not the working of each individual platform – the main point of integration is ensuring that each platform works harmoniously with the others. Unfortunately, the MDS has shifted from one or two primary tools that run all functions to a collection of several tools. Each tool has a specific role to perform, but all of them should communicate smoothly with each other (which many of them do not).
Multiple Tools
While it may sound like a good idea to have multiple data tools for your MDS, the reality is that data engineers and analysts have to deal with lengthy setup, integration, and maintenance just to get the tools working how they want. Even after all that, there’s little to no holistic governance and observability of the various tools, leading to a lack of end-to-end orchestration and numerous security vulnerabilities.
TimeXtender is an excellent example of a holistic data integration tool that eliminates the need for an unwieldy MDS. Our software solution helps you to define data marts for several Business Intelligence (BI) tools and endpoints. It also helps you model a data warehouse and quickly integrate your siloed data into a single solution. You can achieve all the above through a simple drag-and-drop function thanks to our easy-to-use interface.
3. Protecting Your Data
Another big trend to watch out for in 2023 is data security and governance – how your data and the data of those you serve is protected. In our opinion, there have never been sufficient strategies and mechanisms to keep personal data from falling into the hands of unscrupulous (aka shady) people. Governments and businesses are now realizing that the information they collect may be at risk and are moving with speed to install relevant security features. They also need to understand how data is processed along every step in their systems (aka data lineage). It is now more important than ever to use the right tools that support these growing needs. For example, TimeXtender automatically generates documentation and data lineage reports to save users time and prevent errors.
Prime examples of regulations driving the need for data governance are the Chinese Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL), the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). It is highly likely that more countries will follow and establish rules and regulations to safeguard their citizens' personal data. These kinds of regulations make the need for data protection and lineage more important than ever.
Companies have an important task over the next year to make sure that their data handling and data processing procedures are adequately understood and documented. This means auditing the type of information in their possession, how it is collected and stored, and how the data is used.
While this sounds like extra work for businesses and organizations rushing to comply with government regulations, it provides a great opportunity for data specialists in many countries to showcase their skills and improve their data analysis methods and strategies. Additionally, businesses and organizations are likely to pay well, knowing that their data will be in safe hands.
4. Migrating Data to the Cloud
Every organization should use data produced daily to remain competitive. Some of these companies are relatively small, and not all of them will have the access to data analysis and storage facilities like other prominent tech giants. This is why most of them are turning to Data as a Service (DaaS) in the cloud to level the playing field.
More organizations and businesses are turning to cloud technology to modernize their workloads and infrastructure, and DaaS comes in handy. DaaS is becoming increasingly popular, assisting with analytics, data integration, storage, and management. Data as a Service can help organizations make their data reliable, ease their current workloads, improve data integrity, and reduce the time taken to gain insight from the data. TimeXtender offers the option to store your data on-premises, in the cloud, or a hybrid of both.
Data as a Service and Software as a Service (SaaS) work almost similarly. The two allow clients to access applications delivered using a cloud computing strategy over a network. This saves users the trouble of running the apps locally on their phones or computers. The difference between SaaS and DaaS is that Data as a Service outsources most data processing operations, storage, and integration processes to the cloud.
While the model is proving beneficial to consumers because of the customized software solutions, data specialists should work towards improving the security features of the service. The last few years have seen an increase in remote workers as more people shift towards working from home, which increases their susceptibility to hackers and cyberattacks. Luckily, DaaS is here to help – it can implement stronger security features, such as how login data and passwords are managed. Any cloud service provider should comply with the security regulations from the company.
Benefits of Data as a Service
Large organizations often have a heavy workload. DaaS permits more resources and offers higher scalability almost instantaneously. The model can optimize the data management and processing costs since the model improves the use of the resources for the current workload. DaaS also allows for resource allocation adjustment, which benefits organizations using the cloud service.
Subscribers get several benefits from using DaaS technology. These include:
- Instant access and utilization of digital files through the internet
- Improves the productivity of a business
- Effortless data sharing because you can access the data stream on demand
- Cheap and convenient to use because there are no premiums or fees charged for accessibility
- DaaS enables subscribers to reach a large area and access high-speed data
DaaS makes data storage affordable and offers resources for daily use in business. Because of all the mentioned benefits, DaaS is likely to grow in popularity in 2023. As data engineers and analysts, you should make use of this popularity to better your cloud services.
5. Artificial Intelligence
The most recognizable trend to watch out for in 2023 is artificial intelligence (AI). AI uses machines and computer intelligence to make everyday tasks easier, and it has revolutionized the way things run, from transportation and exploration to data analysis.
Self-driving vehicles and autonomous robot vacuums have artificial intelligence to thank for their creation, as do your favorite voice-activated assistants such as Siri and Alexa. Some areas that have seen massive improvements in recent years include:
- Data analysis
- Machine learning
- Robotics
- Automation
Artificial intelligence is improving human abilities at both professional and personal levels and speeding the evolution of data analysis. With the evolution of AI, the market now has a wide array of clever and scalable artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques that deal with small data sets. This is an improvement from traditional AI techniques.
With artificial intelligence, data scientists can benefit significantly from the formulation of efficient and effective processes.
There are several ways artificial intelligence is useful in data analysis and boosting business value. A good example is forecasting customer demands, which consequently boosts sales. AI is also useful in speeding deliveries and warehouse record keeping, increasing efficiency and customer satisfaction.
A good artificial intelligence system is also faster, highly adaptive, and gives high returns on investment. While we can never be sure it won’t give birth to Skynet, we can feel pretty confident AI will be a driving force in 2023.
Natural Language Processing
Natural Language Processing (NLP) is one of the most popular subsections of computer science, artificial intelligence, and linguistics, and it has gained a lot of interest among specialists over the years. In simple terms, NLP mainly focuses on communication between computers and humans using language. NLP empowers computer programs to analyze, identify, and collect huge amounts of data extracted from natural languages. The result is a huge improvement in machine intelligence.
NLP is crafted to read and interpret human languages. It is predicted that NLP will become extremely important in tracking market intelligence in 2023, enabling businesses and other organizations to make sense of their data and additional information to create future strategies. Unlike its predecessors, natural language processing focuses on grammatical issues and sentences associated with the text that makes up the data.
ChatGPT
In addition to NLP, artificial intelligence has also led to the creation of automated chatbot processing programs, such as ChatGPT. These automation programs have revolutionized the way people create written content, visual media, and other essential assets for marketing, interaction, data analysis, and more. 2023 will be a banner year for automating content, graphics, and videos with AI tools, as human creators generate new assets with the help of AI across multiple industries.
6. Data Architecture Improvements
There are constant changes to data management, and each year brings new developments that alter how data engineers and data scientists store, analyze, and use data. With terms such as “data lakehouse,” “data mesh,” and “data fabric” dominating the landscape, it’s easy to get confused!
Data Lakehouse
Who wouldn’t want to own a data lakehouse? While the term sounds like a wonderful place to relax during the summer, a data lakehouse is a relatively new open data management architecture that combines the flexibility and scale of a data lake with the management capabilities of a data warehouse. By merging the data lake and warehouse, engineers can move faster by using data without needing multiple systems. They can also use TimeXtender to connect multiple data sources, and with the help of machine learning and AI, enjoy better access without the need of the common two-tier data architecture. Expect many data lakehouses to be built in 2023.
Data Mesh
Data mesh is an approach to data management that decentralizes the management process and makes it easier for companies to remain agile when it comes to their data. Mesh is integral to help spread responsibilities across an organization, instead of using a top-down or centralized approach that leaves data management in the hands of a few (likely overworked) data engineers or analysts. Keep an eye on this for 2023, because data mesh is likely to be a very prominent data architecture trend.
Data Fabric
If data decentralization is your bag, then a data fabric could be the trend that excites you the most for 2023. A data fabric is a type of architecture that allows organizations to store data in various locations, including relational databases, tagged files, flat files, and more. A data fabric doesn’t replace a data lake or data warehouse – it simply helps them operate more efficiently. A data fabric doesn’t care about geography, use case, or deployment – all it wants to do is give real-time access to your important data, which, in the end, is the most crucial aspect of any data architecture approach.
These six trends will be at the forefront of data engineering, data science, and data analysis for 2023, but they won’t be the only ones gaining momentum. At TimeXtender, we’re always excited about what new innovations will be thought of and implemented during a new year, even if they’re just ideas that lead to breakthroughs a decade from now. Which trends do you see leading the way for 2023? Leave a comment, and if you want to learn more about TimeXtender, feel free to get in touch with us at any time.