By peter oluka
Big Data has become one of the driving forces behind the global economy as an individual today generates more data than an organization would few years back.
The trends are underpinning business decisions; assisting them to generate multiple options on how to meet customer needs, as Wikibon’s study projects that big data will be a $50 billion business by end of 2017. Same time, the level of security breaches has increased.
To this end, the Chief Information Officers (CIOs) have even more responsibilities to put their respective organization on the right path for survivability, particularly, as estimated by analysts: poor data can cost businesses 20%–35% of their operating revenue.
To tackle the enormous tasks, Sunnet Systems at its one-day forum tagged ‘Datacenter Infrastructure Economics – Tip the scales with the Power of IBM Systems’, emphasized that the CIOs must understand that data is changing, cloud innovations are expanding, and mobile and social are changing the whole scenarios of operations.
In an exclusive interview with Nigeria CommunicationsWeek, Mr. Kehinde Sogunle, executive director of Sunnet Systems said that the concern for IT security is very high due to the pervasiveness of digital presence in today’s business environment.
“There is a cogent reason to be concerned about security, because no business can survive today without going digital. It’s either you transform or get kicked out of the market. However, the confidence I need to the CIOs is that majority of Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEMs) have security inbuilt to whatever systems they have.
“Also, there are cognitive systems that work faster; they understand security reasoning, learn about patterns and interact. Once they see out of step movement in systems, they raise queries. A company like IBM has such solution with a rich base of researchers. So, it is now more convenient for organizations to consider seriously moving their technology to the cloud, because the configurations of the infrastructure that drive the cloud are already built with top security solutions. The CEOs need to work with the CIOs to make this happen in their respective organizations,” Sogunle said.
“The ‘man’ (CIO) that is given the work to inform people should also be informed. H/she ought to know things like the patterns of security breaches. This can start from the point of enlightening people,” Mr. Steve Ojedele, head of Sales at the Sunnet Systems told Nigeria CommunicationsWeek, adding that every CIO should have knowledge about data, cloud innovation and mobile and social”.
He said that the trends are changing the whole scenarios of operations. “An individual today generates more data today than an organization would about ten years ago. If that is happening, we need stills to mine and process the data- structured, semi-structured and unstructured. These are the current trends that CIOs should be aware of so they can give better ‘information’ as a means to increase productivity and the profitability of their respective businesses”, Ojedele added.
The interactive forum provided participants with an excellent opportunity to meet experts from both Sunnet Systems and IBM; discuss on how to discover the secrets and smarter ways of dealing with the environment in the IT world.
It also provided thought provoking insights to CIOs and Senior ICT executives through a mix of end presentations and customer testimonial/case studies giving the CIOs the opportunity to hear about the latest global ICT trends and best practices and become involved in general discussions with other participants.