Technological advancements and the exponential growth of data are reshaping operational practices across numerous sectors, including the public sector. Government data generation and digital archiving are accelerating, driven by the proliferation of mobile devices and applications, smart sensors, cloud computing solutions, and citizen-facing portals. As digital information becomes more voluminous and complex, the management, processing, storage, security, and retention of this data grow increasingly intricate. New tools for capture, search, discovery, and analysis are enabling organizations to derive valuable insights from unstructured data. The government sector is reaching a critical juncture, recognizing information as a strategic asset. Governments must now protect, leverage, and analyze both structured and unstructured data to fulfill mission requirements and serve the public more effectively. As government leaders work to evolve into data-driven organizations, they are establishing the foundation to correlate dependencies among events, personnel, processes, and information.
High-value government solutions will emerge from the integration of several disruptive technologies:
-
Mobile devices and applications
-
Cloud services
-
Social business technologies and networking
-
Big Data and analytics
Big Data represents an intelligent industry solution that empowers government entities to make better decisions by acting on patterns identified through the analysis of large volumes of data—both related and unrelated, structured and unstructured.
However, achieving these outcomes requires more than simply accumulating massive amounts of data. As Tom Kalil and Fen Zhao of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy noted in a post on the OSTP Blog, "Making sense of these volumes of Big Data requires cutting-edge tools and technologies that can analyze and extract useful knowledge from vast and diverse streams of information."
The White House facilitated agency access to these technologies by establishing the National Big Data Research and Development Initiative in 2012. This initiative allocated over $200 million to maximize the potential of the Big Data explosion and the tools required to analyze it.
The challenges posed by Big Data are nearly as formidable as its potential is promising. Efficient data storage remains a primary challenge. With budgets often constrained, agencies must minimize storage costs per megabyte while ensuring data remains easily accessible for users to retrieve as needed. Backing up massive data volumes further complicates this task.
Effective data analysis presents another significant challenge. Many agencies utilize commercial tools to sift through vast data sets, identifying trends that enhance operational efficiency. (A recent MeriTalk study indicated that federal IT executives believe Big Data could help agencies save over $500 billion while meeting mission objectives).
Custom-developed Big Data tools are also enabling agencies to meet their analytical needs. For instance, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Computational Data Analytics Group has made its Piranha data analytics system available to other agencies. This system has helped medical researchers identify links that can alert doctors to aortic aneurysms before they occur. It is also used for routine tasks, such as matching job candidates with hiring managers by reviewing resumes.
Read more...
