Talking about Alibaba Big Data: DT era

At present, everyone is talking about big data, talking about the DT era, but what is big data, everyone has their own opinion, like blind people, each thinks that they are real elephants. I am also worried that what I have seen is just the tip of the iceberg of big data. After all, the big data that will lead the next revolution of humanity can be made clear by not a few articles.

I) DT era

The concept of big data was actually proposed in the 1990s. At that time, it was hoped that by merging all the scattered data and then mining the data to see the problems that existed before, to predict the trend in the next few years. To guide business decisions. For example, in the insurance industry, life insurance will calculate the premium and return rate based on the average life expectancy through statistical calculation of big data. This is an attempt to commercialize data in a specific environment, at a specific time, not really big data.

Let's look at the leader of domestic big data, Alibaba. We started talking about big data strategy as early as 2010. In the same year, Maxcompute (formerly ODPS) began to lay out, and ant small loans started to start business.

In 2012, Alibaba established the position of CDO and established the CDO business unit, which is responsible for the big data strategy of the "data sharing platform" of the Alibaba Group. In the same year, a "Big Data Era" began to sell well at home and abroad, and the domestic big data era kicked off.

In 2014, Ma Yun once again proposed that "human beings are moving from the IT era to the DT era." Humans have moved from the IT era to the DT era. The IT era is dominated by self-control and self-management, while in the DT (Datatechnology) era, it is a service. The public, the technology that stimulates productivity. It seems that there is a technical difference between the two, but it is actually a difference in the level of ideas.

Having said that, what is the big data? Let's first look at what big data is.

What is big data?

1, big data ≠ owns data

Many people think that they have data, especially with a large amount of data. This is big data. This is definitely wrong. The amount of data is not big data. For example, the meteorological data is very large. If it is only used for weather forecasting, as long as the computing power keeps up. On the line, it is still far from playing its value. But insurance companies use natural weather data to predict natural disasters and adjust insurance rates associated with natural disasters. It has evolved other business values and formed a business environment for big data. Therefore, big data should be used, even associated, and exchanges can produce real value, forming a big data business unique to the DT era.

2, big data ≠ reporting platform

There are many companies that have established their own business reporting centers, or large-screen display centers, and immediately announced that they have implemented big data, which is not enough. Although the report is also a reflection of big data, the real big data business is not the report generation by humans, it is a report system with big data appearance. In the big data closed-loop system, everything is a data producer and a data user. They automatically learn and intelligently adjust through an automated, intelligent closed-loop system to improve overall productivity.

3, big data ≠ computing platform

I have seen a report before, saying that a certain financial institution has established its own big data system. Later, a closer look is to build a Hadoop cluster of hundreds of machines. The big data computing platform is the technical basis of big data applications. It is a very important part of the big data closed loop, and it is also an indispensable part. However, it cannot be said that there is big data in the computing platform. For example, I bought a pot, can't say that I already have a dish, from the pot to the dish, the raw materials (data), the knives (processing tools), the chef (data processing) can finally make the dishes.

4, big data ≠ precision marketing

I have seen many startups doing big data startups. Looking closely, people are doing big-data-based recommendation engines, advertising, and so on. Is this big data? They are doing an application of big data, and it can be said that it is already a kind of big data. It’s just the whole ecology of big data. It can’t be expressed through this kind of thing. Just as an elephant's ear is part of an elephant, it does not represent an elephant.

What is the big data?

Simply put, big data needs a lot of data that can be connected to each other (whether it's own, or buy, exchange others), they have the same on a big data computing platform (or each data node that can communicate with each other) Data standards can be correctly correlated (such as ETL, data standards), through big data related processing technologies (such as algorithms, engines, machine learning) to form automated, intelligent big data products or services, and then form big data collection, feedback Closed loop, automatic intelligence to guide human activities, industrial manufacturing, social development, etc.

Data is in the financial, advertising, retail, logistics, film and television industries, quietly changing our lives. With the spread of mobile phones, the ever-changing wearable devices, smart homes, and even driverless cars are reminding us of the technology represented by the Internet (or Internet of Things), cloud computing, and big data. The revolution is leading the human society to accelerate into a new stage of development after the agricultural era and the industrial era - the data age (DT era).

In the first two eras, land and capital were the production factors, and the data era that is being opened in front of us, as its name suggests, data will become the core production factor.

In the future, data will become the most important resource for business competition. Who can better use big data and who will lead the next generation of business trends. The so-called no data, not smart; no intelligence, not commercial. The next generation of business model is a new model based on data intelligence. Although it has only begun to sprout, although there are only a few limited cases, its huge potential and strength have been recognized.

In the next generation of revolution, whether it is Industry 4.0 (China called China Manufacturing 2025), or the Internet of Things (even a brand new protocol and standard), along with data science and cloud computing capabilities (even blockchain-based distribution) Computing technology), only data is the core of all systems. Everything is interconnected, and after data is all-in-one, data-based personalization and intelligence will be a brand-new revolution. Industry 3.0, which will surpass the automated production line that began more than 100 years ago, will bring a fundamental breakthrough to the overall productivity improvement of human society. , to achieve a huge change from 0 to 1.

It is in this sense that this is a paradigm revolution in business models. The future of business, the future of knowledge, and the future of civilization are essentially the future of people. Intelligent business based on data intelligence is the starting point for this future.