New Services from IBM Help Data Professionals Refine, Curate and Deliver Trusted Data Everywhere

LAS VEGAS, Oct. 27, 2014 — IBM INSIGHT 2014 – IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a new generation of data services on the IBM Cloud that are designed to ensure more trusted information can be applied more readily across an organization.

In a world flooded with big data today, competitive advantage is gained by applying insight in the moment faster than your competitor. Analytics pays back $13.01 for every dollar spent – 1.2 times more than it did three years ago (1).

The new cloud-based services will enable organizations to:

• Simplify and automate the ability to find, refine and prepare data
• Warehouse data in the cloud, making it instantly available for analytics
• Curate unstructured data services to increase the confidence in analytics
• Enhance mobile and web applications with embedded analytics

“All the data in the world is useless if you can’t put it to work. The new cloud-born services from IBM provide data professionals the ability to deliver data with speed and confidence as the fuel for applications and analytics,” said Beth Smith, general manager, Big Data, IBM. “The ability to source and manage the right data will help organizations keep data management streamlined, while adhering to increasingly stringent regulatory demands, and produce results and analysis of real value to the business.”

Unlike other offerings that address only one aspect of the data problem, the new services introduced by IBM today provide the key capabilities to help organizations shift from working on the data to putting data to work for their business. These new innovations will help ensure that data flows seamlessly to applications and analytics, making them portable and accessible, no matter where the data resides. They include:

• IBM DataWorks – IBM DataWorks is a set of cloud-based data refinery services that shape, cleanse, match and secure data. The new services enable business users to find, use and contribute data for analysis; application developers to embed data services into new applications; and IT and data professionals to enable self-service data access and instill confidence to act on the data.
• IBM dashDB – IBM dashDB is a cloud-based data warehousing and analytics service with in-memory technology built-in to deliver answers faster. dashDB keeps infrastructure concerns out of the way of critical and time sensitive analytics. A new integration of dashDB with Cloudant, IBM’s NoSQL database as a service (DBaaS), allows Cloudant clients to embed analytics in their applications with a few clicks.
• IBM Cloudant – IBM is extending its portfolio with Cloudant Local, an on-premise edition of the fully managed cloud database-as-a-service that enables a fluid hybrid cloud data layer that spans private data centers, mobile devices and third-party cloud providers. This ensures customers can easily reconfigure their cloud data platforms over time to optimize the cost, security, reach and performance.

The power of these capabilities could enable, for example, a ride sharing service company to improve their customers’ experience by ensuring their drivers are in the right place at the right time. The company can take taxi trip information, captured in a mobile application running on Cloudant, directly into dashDB, and then use DataWorks to refine and load additional weather and traffic data to provide more insight. With dashDB, Cloudant and DataWorks working together, new insights can be leveraged to improve customer experience and grow revenue.

IBM also introduced today Watson Curator, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering that increases confidence in the delivery of quality content collections and governance for IBM Watson Solutions. For example, an individual insurance risk analyst can quickly review and add context to documents so that many underwriters across the enterprise can get higher quality responses on risk assessments from Watson Engagement Advisor. IBM Watson Curator actively guides subject matter experts — in this case the risk expert — through the entire curation process in order to minimize the time and effort required. This capability improves the relevance and quality of the information used for analytics.

IBM DataWorks, dashDB and Cloudant are available on IBM Bluemix. For more information on DataWorks, go to ibm.biz/ibmdataworks. For more information or to get started using dashDB, go to dashDB.com. IBM Cloudant Local is available on cloudant.com. IBM Watson Curator will be available later this year.

IBM also today announced that its broad portfolio of analytics capabilities —  including Cognos business intelligence and SPSS predictive analytics platforms – is planned to be available via the IBM Cloud marketplace. For more information, please visit: http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/45230.wss

IBM has established a deep portfolio of Big Data and Analytics technology that spans research and development, solutions and software. IBM has invested $24 billion to build its capabilities in Big Data and Analytics through R&D and more than 30 acquisitions. Today, more than 15,000 analytics consultants, 6,000 industry solution business partners and 400 IBM mathematicians are helping clients use big data to transform their organizations.