Data everywhere and anyhow! Gain insights from across the clouds with SAS
In today's data-driven world, businesses are overwhelmed with vast amounts of data generated from various sources, including customer interactions, transactions, IoT devices, and more. Harnessing this data for actionable insights is crucial for gaining a competitive edge. However, as data spreads across different cloud environments and storage systems, organizations often face challenges in unifying and analyzing it effectively. This is where a robust analytics platform like SAS steps in, offering a comprehensive solution to access, analyze, and derive insights from data stored anywhere in the cloud, regardless of its storage location or source.
The Challenge of Data Fragmentation
With the proliferation of cloud services, organizations often find themselves managing data across multiple cloud providers and storage systems. Each cloud environment may have its own unique data formats, APIs, and security protocols, making it difficult to integrate and analyze data seamlessly. This fragmentation hampers the ability to derive holistic insights and can lead to inefficiencies in decision-making processes.
Enter SAS Viya: The Unified Analytics Platform
SAS, a leader in analytics and data management solutions, offers a unified analytics platform that empowers organizations to overcome the challenges of data fragmentation. Regardless of where data resides — whether in public clouds like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, or on-premises storage systems — SAS provides a single point of access for analytics, enabling organizations to harness the full potential of their data through a common abstraction layer. We believe this approach is more efficient and realistic than attempting to unify data in one platform, which many find unachievable and impractical due to the nature of the data.
Figure1: SAS AI & Analytics Lifecycle
Key SAS Viya Features and Capabilities
- Data Engineering: Seamlessly consolidates data from various sources, ensuring consistency and integrity.
- Advanced Analytics: Utilizes machine learning, predictive modeling, and optimization for extracting insights.
- Scalability and Performance: Dynamically scales to handle large data volumes with high performance. And as my colleague Jarno Lindqvist points out in his blog -“SAS Viya’s efficiency and performance result in its ability to dramatically outperform competing solutions, particularly at scale with large and complex datasets.”
- Data and AI Governance: Tackles bias and ensures trustworthy AI through techniques like bias detection, model transparency, adherence to ethical frameworks, and continuous monitoring, all the while delivering reliable data throughout the analytical lifecycle.
- Flexibility and Customization: Offers a customizable platform tailored to unique business needs, fostering innovation.
Figure2: Data pipeline in SAS Studio Engineer
Real-World Applications
The versatility of SAS's unified analytics platform enables organizations across various industries to derive insights and drive value from their data. SAS also provides out-of-the-box solutions within each industry, empowering organizations to address specific challenges faster and cheaper:
- Retail: Analyzing customer behavior and preferences to personalize marketing campaigns and optimize inventory management.
- Finance: Detecting fraudulent activities, assessing credit risk, and optimizing investment portfolios through predictive analytics.
- Healthcare: Analyzing patient data to improve clinical outcomes, enhance operational efficiency, and reduce healthcare costs.
- Manufacturing: Optimizing production processes, predicting equipment failures, and minimizing downtime through predictive maintenance.
Final words
In the era of big data and cloud computing, organizations need a unified analytics platform that can seamlessly access and analyze data, wherever it resides. SAS offers a comprehensive solution that addresses the challenges of data fragmentation, enabling organizations to derive actionable insights and drive innovation. With SAS, organizations can unlock the full potential of their data and stay ahead in today's competitive landscape. For unified insights, wherever you store your data, SAS is indeed the one analytics platform to rule all clouds.
Other blogs in the series:
Harness the analytical power of your Databricks platform with SAS - SAS Support Communities
