Real time business intelligence
Encyclopedia
Real-time business intelligence is the process of delivering information about business operations as they occur.
In this context, real-time means a range from milliseconds to a few seconds after the business event has occurred. While traditional business intelligence
presents historical data for manual analysis, real-time business intelligence compares current business events with historical patterns to detect problems or opportunities automatically. This automated analysis capability enables corrective actions to be initiated and/or business rules to be adjusted to optimize business processes.
Real-time business intelligence makes sense for some applications but not for others – a fact that organizations need to take into account as they consider investments in real-time BI tools. Trick to deciding whether a real-time BI strategy would pay dividends is to understand your business needs and determine whether end users require immediate access to data for analytical purposes – or if something less than real time is fast enough.
systems have some latency, but the goal is to minimize the time from the business event happening to a corrective action or notification being initiated. Analyst Richard Hackathorn describes three types of latency:
Real-time business intelligence technologies are designed to reduce all three latencies to as close to zero as possible, whereas traditional business intelligence only seeks to reduce data latency and does not address analysis latency or action latency since both are governed by manual processes.
Some commentators have introduced the concept of right time business intelligence which proposes that information should be delivered just before it is required, and not necessarily in real-time.
and Mashup (web application hybrid)
techniques to enable events to be analysed without being first transformed and stored in a database. These in- memory techniques have the advantage that high rates of events can be monitored, and since data does not have to be written into databases data latency can be reduced to milliseconds.
and is also identified with Business Activity Monitoring
. It allows entire processes (transactions, steps) to be monitored, metrics (latency, completion/failed ratios, etc.) to be viewed, compared with warehoused historic data, and trended in real-time. Advanced implementations allow threshold detection, alerting and providing feedback to the process execution systems themselves, thereby 'closing the loop'.
are data visualization
, data federation, enterprise information integration, enterprise application integration and service oriented architecture. Complex event processing tools can be used to analyze data streams in real time and either trigger automated actions or alert workers to patterns and trends.
Data warehouse appliance:Data warehouse appliance is a combination of hardware and software product which was designed exclusively for analytical processing. In data warehouse implementation, tasks that involve tuning, adding or editing structure around the data, data migration from other databases, reconciliation of data are done by DBA. Another task for DBA was to make the database to perform well for large sets of users. Whereas with data warehouse appliances, it is the vendor responsibility of the physical design and tuning the software as per hardware requirements. Data warehouse appliance package comes with its own operating system, storage, DBMS, software, and required hardware. If required data warehouse appliances can easily integrated with other tools.
Mobile technology: There are very limited vendors for providing mobile business intelligence; MBI is integrated with existing BI architecture. MBI is a package that uses existing BI applications so people can use on their mobile phone and make informed decision in real time.
Transportation industry can be benefited by using real-time analytics. For an example railroad network. Depending on the results provided by the real-time analytics, dispatcher can make a decision on what kind of train he can dispatch on the track depending on the train traffic and commodities shipped.
In this context, real-time means a range from milliseconds to a few seconds after the business event has occurred. While traditional business intelligence
Business intelligence
Business intelligence mainly refers to computer-based techniques used in identifying, extracting, and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or departments, or by associated costs and incomes....
presents historical data for manual analysis, real-time business intelligence compares current business events with historical patterns to detect problems or opportunities automatically. This automated analysis capability enables corrective actions to be initiated and/or business rules to be adjusted to optimize business processes.
Real-time business intelligence makes sense for some applications but not for others – a fact that organizations need to take into account as they consider investments in real-time BI tools. Trick to deciding whether a real-time BI strategy would pay dividends is to understand your business needs and determine whether end users require immediate access to data for analytical purposes – or if something less than real time is fast enough.
Latency
All real-time business intelligenceBusiness intelligence
Business intelligence mainly refers to computer-based techniques used in identifying, extracting, and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or departments, or by associated costs and incomes....
systems have some latency, but the goal is to minimize the time from the business event happening to a corrective action or notification being initiated. Analyst Richard Hackathorn describes three types of latency:
- Data latency; the time taken to collect and store the data
- Analysis latency; the time taken to analyze the data and turn it into actionable information
- Action latency; the time taken to react to the information and take action
Real-time business intelligence technologies are designed to reduce all three latencies to as close to zero as possible, whereas traditional business intelligence only seeks to reduce data latency and does not address analysis latency or action latency since both are governed by manual processes.
Some commentators have introduced the concept of right time business intelligence which proposes that information should be delivered just before it is required, and not necessarily in real-time.
Event-based
Real-time Business Intelligence systems are event driven, and may use Event Stream ProcessingEvent Stream Processing
Event stream processing, or ESP, is a set of technologies designed to assist the construction of event-driven information systems. ESP technologies include event visualization, event databases, event-driven middleware, and event processing languages, or complex event processing...
and Mashup (web application hybrid)
Mashup (web application hybrid)
In Web development, a mashup is a Web page or application that uses and combines data, presentation or functionality from two or more sources to create new services...
techniques to enable events to be analysed without being first transformed and stored in a database. These in- memory techniques have the advantage that high rates of events can be monitored, and since data does not have to be written into databases data latency can be reduced to milliseconds.
Data warehouse
An alternative approach to event driven architectures is to increase the refresh cycle of an existing data warehouse to update the data more frequently. These real-time data warehouse systems can achieve near real-time update of data, where the data latency typically is in the range from minutes to hours. The analysis of the data is still usually manual, so the total latency is significantly different from event driven architectural approaches.Server-less technology
The latest alternative innovation to "real-time" event driven and/or "real-time" data warehouse architectures is MSSO Technology (Multiple Source Simple Output) which removes the need for the data warehouse and intermediary servers altogether since it is able to access live data directly from the source (even from multiple, disparate sources). Because live data is accessed directly by server-less means, it provides the potential for zero-latency, real-time data in the truest sense.Process-aware
This is sometimes considered a subset of Operational intelligenceOperational Intelligence
Operational intelligence is a form of real-time dynamic, business analytics that delivers visibility and insight into business operations. Operational intelligence solutions run query analysis against live feeds and event data to deliver real-time, actionable information...
and is also identified with Business Activity Monitoring
Business activity monitoring
Business activity monitoring is software that aids in monitoring of business activities, as those activities are implemented in computer systems....
. It allows entire processes (transactions, steps) to be monitored, metrics (latency, completion/failed ratios, etc.) to be viewed, compared with warehoused historic data, and trended in real-time. Advanced implementations allow threshold detection, alerting and providing feedback to the process execution systems themselves, thereby 'closing the loop'.
Technologies that support real-time analytics
Technologies that can be supported to enable real-time business intelligenceBusiness intelligence
Business intelligence mainly refers to computer-based techniques used in identifying, extracting, and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or departments, or by associated costs and incomes....
are data visualization
Data visualization
Data visualization is the study of the visual representation of data, meaning "information that has been abstracted in some schematic form, including attributes or variables for the units of information"....
, data federation, enterprise information integration, enterprise application integration and service oriented architecture. Complex event processing tools can be used to analyze data streams in real time and either trigger automated actions or alert workers to patterns and trends.
Data warehouse appliance:Data warehouse appliance is a combination of hardware and software product which was designed exclusively for analytical processing. In data warehouse implementation, tasks that involve tuning, adding or editing structure around the data, data migration from other databases, reconciliation of data are done by DBA. Another task for DBA was to make the database to perform well for large sets of users. Whereas with data warehouse appliances, it is the vendor responsibility of the physical design and tuning the software as per hardware requirements. Data warehouse appliance package comes with its own operating system, storage, DBMS, software, and required hardware. If required data warehouse appliances can easily integrated with other tools.
Mobile technology: There are very limited vendors for providing mobile business intelligence; MBI is integrated with existing BI architecture. MBI is a package that uses existing BI applications so people can use on their mobile phone and make informed decision in real time.
Application areas
- Algorithmic tradingAlgorithmic tradingIn electronic financial markets, algorithmic trading or automated trading, also known as algo trading, black-box trading or robo trading, is the use of electronic platforms for entering trading orders with an algorithm deciding on aspects of the order such as the timing, price, or quantity of the...
- Fraud detection
- Systems monitoring
- Application performance monitoring
- Customer Relationship ManagementCustomer relationship managementCustomer relationship management is a widely implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing,...
- Demand sensing
- Dynamic pricing and yield management
- Data validation
- Operational intelligenceOperational IntelligenceOperational intelligence is a form of real-time dynamic, business analytics that delivers visibility and insight into business operations. Operational intelligence solutions run query analysis against live feeds and event data to deliver real-time, actionable information...
and risk management - Payments & cash monitoring
- Data security monitoring
- Supply chain optimization
- RFID/sensor network data analysis
- Workstreaming
- Call center optimization
- Enterprise MashupsMashup (digital)A digital mashup usually is in reference to:1. Digital media content containing any or all of text, graphics, audio, video and animation drawn from pre-existing sources, to create a new derivative work...
and Mashup Dashboards - Transportation industry
Transportation industry can be benefited by using real-time analytics. For an example railroad network. Depending on the results provided by the real-time analytics, dispatcher can make a decision on what kind of train he can dispatch on the track depending on the train traffic and commodities shipped.