7 trends in cloud computing and business intelligence

Howard Dresner, chief research officer at Dresner Consulting Services, is an industry expert in business intelligence. He is known for creating the term "business intelligence" and has always been a thought leader in business intelligence.

Dresner Consulting Services recently released its seventh annual report titled "2018 Cloud Computing and Business Intelligence Market Research." With a total of 102 pages, the report is the most in-depth report in the field of rapidly growing cloud computing business intelligence.

In an extensive and in-depth dialogue, Howard Dresner elaborated on the significance of this report for the field of cloud computing business intelligence.

(1) 2018 is the breakthrough year of cloud computing business intelligence

Reporter: In the 2012 to 2018 chart on the importance of cloud computing business intelligence, there has been a sharp rise. Especially from 2016 to 2018, it jumped from 30% to 50%. 2018 seems to be a breakthrough year for cloud computing business intelligence. How do you think about this?

H. Dresner: I think 2018 is a watershed. I think cloud computing business intelligence has reached the key nodes adopted by the organization. I think that some of the temporary fears or concerns of many companies about adopting cloud computing have largely weakened. Even the financial industry seems to be adopting more cloud computing.

For a long time, financial institutions (FI) and information technology (IT) were very close to defending against cloud-based deployments. People have already seen these two differences. In general, IT staff are still less willing to use cloud computing.

I think a lot of them are losing control. This is because of the fundamental changes in the nature of their work and the nature of their organization. So, this is disturbing, and it is a more subversive change than the financial industry. For example, migrate from a server that can be controlled in real time to the cloud. It does not change their work, but for IT people, these are really difficult to adapt.

So, I think this is largely what happened. Especially for smaller organizations, in fact, these organizations have not turned to the resistance of cloud computing. Today there are too many services and products in the cloud, many of which can only be run in the cloud or adopt cloud-first policies.

For enterprises, cloud-based deployments or migrations to the cloud make more sense because this is where the enterprise may have more choices and is more likely to get updated functionality. Even those on-premise software will continue to maintain their software operations, and it's not just cloud-based products.

(2) The functional requirements of cloud computing business intelligence are similar to the functional requirements of on-premises deployment.

Reporter: The chart describes the functional requirements of cloud computing business intelligence. Here is a brief quote from the report: "In 2018, traditional business intelligence capabilities, including dashboard advanced visualization, ad hoc queries, data integration, and self-service, led the most needed cloud computing business intelligence capabilities." This sounds It seems that there are a lot of overlapping functions. If it is not completely overlapping, what do people want to see in on-premise and in the cloud? Is there a big difference?

H. Dresner: There is no substantial difference between the two. Interestingly, some changes have taken place now. Therefore, for a period of time, companies must still use the client, design management or similar things. Super users have also changed.

So, there are now more purely cloud-based implementations. But from a functional point of view, the business wants the same thing to a large extent, but there are some differences. If the enterprise is deployed locally for research, the first default mode is reporting. When people see cloud-based implementations, they see something more dynamic and interactive. This is a bit different, but there is a clear overlap.

(3) Cloud computing business intelligence and user revolution

Reporter: The really interesting thing about this is that the interest in end-user self-service has surged in 2018, which means democratization of technology for people. People don't need an IT team to do this, they can do it themselves. This seems to be a big trend. I don't know if you agree with this?

H. Dresner: It all depends on how people define self-service. For the average end user, self-service is ‘let me use the tool myself’. If you talk to the IT department, he will say, ‘we want to choose a self-service tool for you in a controlled environment, and we will help you decide what to do. ’

I think users want to have the freedom to analyze data and combine it with data that they are interested in or valuable without having to get help from others. Because this may have a certain delay, this is the problem. Few IT organizations can do this. So, I think that is to let users get what they should have while retaining control over the assets of companies that need to be highly managed.

And I think this is a user revolution. Yes, this has been around for a while. Many times, users are acquiring some solutions, sometimes providing advice, and some investment from IT. So, IT definitely has some influence, and so is the application or implementation of some standards. But they can no longer control it, and may even have no veto power.

This is the impact of democratization. Back in 1993, people began to consider the concept of information democracy. Part of the problem is that cost hinders information democracy. As costs fall, these tools become universally available and more accessible, and business users can do a lot of things on their own, closer to the vision of information democracy.

(4) Cloud computing business intelligence and security

Reporter: According to the survey report on cloud computing security needs in 2017-2018, respondents indicated that ‘there is a greater gap in security standards awareness than in previous studies’. One of the obstacles to cloud computing business intelligence is security. People want to keep their own data. So, do people have less awareness of security than in the past? What happened to business intelligence on business intelligence?"

H. Dresner: This question is a bit contradictory, and it must be differentiated according to the person answering the question. So, if it is a salesperson, maybe there is not much security awareness. And if the data is running on the AWS cloud platform, you might not worry about it because they think cloud providers know what to do. Or the company may migrate the data to Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud, so you can assume that these people don't have to worry about the security of the data, because the cloud provider will handle it. Many companies don't have to focus on these security protocols themselves because vendors provide them with some security services.

In other words, this will become a problem when you hear that IT companies believe that a security issue is a reason for not investing. However, I think people just assume that large-scale providers running applications are providing them with security protection.

Large cloud computing providers must spend a lot of money on security and have many highly skilled people who constantly monitor and innovate to prevent vandalism and attacks and prevent this from happening. As people have seen, if security is not guaranteed, it may lose user trust. If Amazon or Microsoft face this situation, they can't afford this result because it will have a major impact on business and reputation. Therefore, they spend a lot of manpower and resources to ensure security and prevent damage and attacks.

(5) Will cloud computing dominate in business intelligence?

Reporter: I think cloud computing will become the main mode of business intelligence in the next five years. The idea of deploying business intelligence internally is largely outdated. Do you agree with this statement?

H. Dresner: I agree with this. So, will cloud computing dominate? Of course. It is becoming like this. We have been publishing this particular report for seven years. We have seven years of data and people can see the real transformation. More than 70% of people in 2012 never thought that they would deploy business intelligence by 2018. Many of them are now deployed.

Everything can exist, this is just a matter of quantity. There are still things running, these are not replaced because it is valid. They will not be replaced as a result. Nothing can do this effectively or cheaply.

I believe that as new applications and new users come online, business intelligence will increasingly be based on public clouds. This does not mean that everything else will migrate to the cloud. Some people will run in an on-premises data center.

Interestingly: this year we have raised a new issue and we will announce this result. We asked people about their suppliers' evaluations. Has the product replaced other products?

Only about 23%-24% said it replaced the existing one. If people look at plans for economic and budget growth, and in many cases they don't replace something, some say there are many opportunities for users to automate, and users can't access anything other than current Excel.

(6) Cloud computing business intelligence and on-premises business intelligence

Reporter: It seems that the final problem with on-premise will be that it will not be able to meet the pace of the toolset, because cloud-based business intelligence can upgrade a set of tools overnight, and some companies will continue to use the original in-house data center. Tool set without migrating to the cloud, do you think this will happen?

H. Dresner: For some companies, it will. Still others still use the original tools, because some people still use the core system of the 1980s.

Because people are satisfied with certain things, even if they may complain about lack of function, it is difficult for them to adopt unknown technology or applications. So, this will be a much more gradual process than people think. Therefore, new applications and new things make a lot of sense for new users. For those users who already exist, those who want to migrate will be implemented, but some people may not.

Therefore, I think that before someone wants to migrate their business to the cloud in bulk, their business is deployed internally for much longer than people think. And before most users migrate to the cloud, it will take a long time, but it will eventually happen.

(7) Key points: Cloud computing is the preferred mode of business intelligence

Reporter: Is there a general content in the report?

H. Dresner: Today, more and more people think cloud computing is a better choice. It costs less and has more options. Many organizations and vendors are adopting a cloud-first approach, especially if the business is dealing with business partners or users. This does not mean that the on-premise software has been eliminated, but there are many attractive options in cloud computing, which of course requires serious attention from those who choose the product.