Big Data needs new tools

There is general agreement that Big Data is not a short-term hype, but one of the key growth drivers of the next few years.

Based on the VBW study "Big Data in the Free State of Bavaria - Opportunities and Challenges"the Bavarian Council of Economic Experts has therefore formulated concrete recommendations for action on how to make the best possible use of the great potential of big data.

Based on Big Data, companies can optimize their internal processes and even develop entirely new business models.

To use the data, service providers must rely on new tools and, above all, integrate them. For example, social media such as Facebook are becoming valuable data sources that can be used for targeted customer campaigns.

Hybrid cloud scenarios accelerate data growth, and connectivity to cloud platforms promotes distributed data storage.

These examples alone show that classic relational databases are no longer the sole source of information to be collected and evaluated.

In addition, relational databases do not provide the necessary performance; the separation of OLAP and OLTP systems makes real-time analyses difficult or even impossible.

However, this is exactly what is needed, for example, for customer inquiries over the phone.

High-performance business processes and real-time research, both retrospective and predictive, are becoming decisive competitive advantages.

For predictive maintenance, SAP provides technologies for real-time analytics with Hana, the Hana Cloud Platform (HCP) and Hana Vora (connecting the Hadoop world with Hana, BW and ERP).

They are used to make existing processes and system landscapes Big Data-capable and allow, for example, structured data to be loaded in real time from the ERP Hana system into the BW systems; predictive maintenance via large (unstructured) data volumes stored cost-effectively in Hadoop becomes possible.

Since social intelligence is now part of SAP Business Suite, customer information such as comments, replies, and likes can be collected and analyzed via Facebook integration. Targeted campaigns can then be carried out on the basis of the data material.

Big Data in practice

With iRetPlat, the FIS subsidiary FIS-iLog has been providing an open cloud platform for the management of returnable transport packaging (MWTV) in the retail and logistics industry since mid-2016.

Using Big Data technologies such as SAP Hana, it quickly manages millions of packaging data sets that are analyzed in real time by users of the cloud platform.

Reusable transport packaging such as Euro pallets, mesh boxes, containers or plastic containers are intended for repeated use in mutual exchange.

The companies involved here can book this piece by piece on iRetPlat.

Until now, companies have sealed themselves off from the outside world with regard to their EDP/IT infrastructure for understandable reasons. Nevertheless, there is an increasing demand from the market to break through this rigidity.

Where pallet slips used to be receipted and countersigned at the ramp, iRetPlat makes it possible to book them online bilaterally via smartphone, tablet or PC using simple, user-friendly technology.

The benefits for all parties involved: the manufacturer has greater transparency over its flow of goods and reusable transport packaging, accelerated processes, reusable transport packaging inventory queries in real time, reduced administrative efforts and, as a sum total, reduced transaction costs.

Carriers can avoid empty runs by using clearing procedures to balance accounts, which helps increase efficiency.

The test phase of the platform with regional carriers has been running since mid-2016.

The official market launch including certification by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy with the "Trusted Cloud" seal took place in January 2017.