Dive into the Lake, Fly to the Cloud - Approaching the Final Step in the Data Journey

Sonya Gustafson, Director of Data Products, Yes Energy

Over the past few weeks we’ve been exploring the Big Data and Digital Transformation Journey within the context of nodal power markets. As you progress from the Exploring Digital stage to the Being Digital stage of your journey, what follows building a solid foundation and an API exploration? In this blog, we’ll identify the indicators that your company is ready to take the next step in the journey and dive into the Lake, or fly to the Cloud.

Indicators that its Time to Progress

The volume of nodal market and energy data is increasing by the minute. New policies and new types of participants expand the complexity with new data types. With these infinite amounts of data, there are opportunities that may only be discovered through the most advanced and cutting edge data analytics. Are you ready to fuel your data analytics with limitless amounts of data quickly and throttle free? Is your business participating in multiple ISOs or trading multiple products? Do you have a large volume of traders with data-driven workflows? If any of these describe you then it’s probably time to move your company to the Being Digital stage, on the leading edge of data analytics and data science.

Dive on in, or Fly on up

Big Big Data is here, and you have options for utilizing it to power your business and be on the cutting edge of the latest technologies and analytics.  Both Data Lakes and Cloud Data Warehouses allow you to harness the power of Big Data and maximize its potential.  They are both fantastic options for those looking to crunch billions and billions of rows of data and infinitely scale their analyses and processes, attracting the newest and most skilled talent to work in leading edge organizations.  Evolving from API solutions, Data Lakes and Cloud Warehouses are both great options for those looking to launch themselves into the Being Digital phase.  However, there are slight differences to consider when deciding which technology to adopt in your organization. 

Data Lakes

Data Lakes are repositories where organizations can store ALL of their data, whether structured or unstructured, at whatever scale they need (AWS).  Data Lakes allow your business's data experts to work with data in the tools and frameworks they prefer, fueling a multitude of analytics and machine learning processes.  To check out some of the business cases for moving to the Lake, including advanced and sophisticated analytics and more efficient and easy access to data, see Aberdeen’s recent study.  Another advantage of Data Lakes is that they are ideal for businesses who have established computing power, storage or security processes.  Data Lakes allow download and import of raw data files into existing networks, storage systems, and processes.  Because Data Lakes can store structured and unstructured data, they also enable importing whatever data needed to store in order to perform advanced analytics.  Data Lakes offer the ultimate flexibility and scalability to power your business’ data needs. 

Cloud-based Data Warehouses

Cloud-based data warehouses are hosted on cloud infrastructure, so they require no hardware or software implementation (Stitch). Additional benefits include easy user access, infinite storage capabilities, and phenomenal computational capacity. If that weren’t enough, cloud-based data warehouses are entirely scalable (snapLogic). If you’re looking to improve your business data processes, look no further than cloud-based data warehouses. Cloud-based data warehouses are on the leading edge of the data science space, and by employing cloud-based data stores, your business is sure to attract the best new data science and algorithmic talent, allowing them to help you develop innovative solutions. Data across industries is increasing for this ever-expanding resource; cloud-based solutions are a great way to leverage Big Data to power your business.