Just like oil is used to power vehicles, airplanes and machines, data is used to power most of the transformative technology we see today i.e. artificial intelligence, automation, and advanced predictive analytics. Refining or transforming both data and oil makes it more valuable to the consumer, but does that make data the new oil?
How does data compare to Oil?
While data and oil can both be seen as a way to “power” key applications, there are important differences to understand. The first difference is in how data is produced. While oil requires incredible efforts to extract, data is all around us; even household appliances can produce it! This leads to our second major difference – because of the speed at which data in produced, storage and timely processing are critical. Finally, data can be “reused” in a way that oil cannot – chopped, sliced, and combined to produce new analytics and answer novel questions. These differences are critical when we think about the use we want to make data.
Adapting to data’s unique characteristics:
Given these differences, we need systems that can take advantage of the unique characteristics of data. These systems will be capable of collecting a high velocity of data from an ever-increasing number of sources. They will be able to store and transform the data, relying on highly-performant databases and tools that embed processing and business logic directly into the workflow. Finally, they can distribute the data in multiple ways. This distribution can take many forms; we take advantage of the reusability of data to feed it in different ways to different users, such as traders, risk managers, and modelers.
How ZEMA turns data into power:
When producing oil we need an effective solution to extract, refine, and distribute the finished products. Working with data is a similar process; this is where ZEMA can provide an all-in-one solution. ZEMA automates the collection and storage of the raw data, the transformation and validation of this data, and the distribution to end users.