News from the Pacific Northwest BI Summit

I have just returned from the 10^th annual Pacific Northwest BI Summit.  This is the fourth time I have attended the event.  And this one was the best yet.

Multiple Points of View

This invitation-only event is unique in the Business Intelligence and Data Integration industry due to the multiple perspectives provided by its unique mix of analysts, media, and BI/DI vendors including:

• Analysts – Merv Adrian, Jill Dyche, Claudia Imhoff, William McKnight Shawn Rogers and Colin White
• Media – Ted Cuzzillo, Hannah Smalltree and Craig Stedman
• Vendors – Composite Software, DataFlux, IBM, JackBe, Lyzasoft, ParAccel, Predixion, QlikView, SAP, Talend, Teradata and WhereScape

Key Issues for 2011 and Beyond

The agenda included deep dive discussions on a number of critical BI and DI subjects which are influencing business and IT leaders today.              

• Collaboration, Social Data Analytics and Self-Service
• Business Intelligence and Analytics in the Cloud
• Big Data and Big Analytics
• Extreme Information: Challenges and Opportunities for Large-Scale Data Warehousing, BI and Analytics

These formal sessions were complemented by a number of informal discussions on these and other topics of interest.

Data Virtualization Was and Will Be a Hot Topic

It was rewarding to hear the analysts and other vendors discuss the growing importance of data virtualization, especially as cloud, big data, and more add to the increasingly complex set of new data sources that enterprises need to access and integrate. 

In the predictions session, Enterprise Resource Management’s Shawn Rogers addressed this challenge as his number one prediction for the coming year.  According to Shawn, “access to and integration of data has become increasingly critical, especially in today’s more hybrid mix of data silos.  Successful access and integration will be key enablers for other BI advancements.”

My prediction, “the unforeseen consequences of the proliferation of analytic appliances, Hadoop, and cloud deployments will start to be seen this year.”  And when that happens, data virtualization’s value will be seen as never before.”

For more insights from the BI Summit, check out #BISUM on twitter and/or check out Craig Steadman’s articles and videos on SearchBusinessAnalytics.com and SearchDataManagement.com over the next several weeks.