One of the most significant challenges facing modern businesses, especially large corporations, is how to store and manage their data. Even a small business could have dozens of different data streams from various platforms, apps, IoT devices, and more. Compounding the issue, many platforms save data in a proprietary file type that is unreadable outside the software. As a result, the contemporary data flow has been a stress test for on-prem data storage systems. Data lakes have emerged as a solution to these common data storage and management challenges.
This post will examine the benefits of a data lake and how CBTS leverages them to maximize results for its clients.
A data lake is a reservoir into which data streams can flow. The benefits of a data lake are numerous. They pull data from disparate sources and deposit them in one place. That data can be structured or unstructured, of multiple file types, and imported as-is without converting files. A data lake is easily searchable, fast, and more cost-effective than on-prem systems.
Users can then manage their data in multiple ways to create powerful business intelligence reports, track analytics, and generate custom dashboards. Data lakes are cloud-based and can be accessed remotely from anywhere worldwide if the user has proper permissions. Additionally, the consolidated data can be analyzed and manipulated with AI and machine learning.
Read the case study: CBTS solution modernizes, simplifies critical security environment
An important benefit to the data lake architecture is that it avoids the pitfalls of on-prem data storage. Using a cloud-based system removes the cost of continually expanding or upgrading data resources and management. A data lake storage system lets you scale elastically, only paying for the storage and services you need in a pay-as-you-go model.
Other common on-prem challenges include:
Read more: Howdy Partner panel discusses business benefits of Data Lake Kickstarter tools
CBTS implements a data lake solution by migrating high-value data to a cloud-native format for the client. Then, CBTS can effectively build out custom scripts and solutions using Amazon Web Services (AWS) and ServiceNow to create meaningful insights into the client’s rich data, including new provisioning and support systems. CBTS has worked with clients to pool data in data lakes from dozens of other services, apps, platforms, and websites. Deployment is speedy and highly targeted, helping achieve increased speed-to-value.
CBTS deploys data lakes for its clients using open structure as a guiding principle. Customers own their data and can use it however they see fit. Users aren’t locked into a single platform or aging technology. Instead, data is clean and stored in a serverless system operated by AWS Athena. Using this model, customers don’t need access to the AWS suite of tools to interact with their data. Instead, users log into a customized dashboard.
Security is a top concern for any data management system or tool. A benefit of the CBTS implementation model of data lakes is that no user may access the data without specific permissions. Additionally, all data is automatically encrypted, ensuring that the data remains safe from cyber attacks. The data is exceptionally durable as well. AWS cloud storage maintains annual durability of 11 nines (99.99999999999%). In other words, even with one billion pieces of data stored in the data lake, it’s improbable that even a single file could be lost.
Learn more: Streamlining the Data Lake to take on emerging security threats
In many ways, data lakes are a future-proof solution. Because AWS leverages the Cloud, your data lake can scale almost infinitely while keeping costs low. Additionally, as cloud tools and machine learning continue to emerge, the ability to manipulate your data will grow in new and meaningful ways. The experts at CBTS are experienced with deploying data lakes and can launch your lake in as little as five minutes. CBTS engineers leverage storage best practices to optimize your data, keep data encrypted, and maximize the speed of search and retrieval.
Contact CBTS to learn more about the ways a data lake could benefit your organization.