Big data, big Analytics Engines

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  • By Emily McDaid

    Belfast-based Analytics Engines develops bespoke and high performance infrastructure needed to run big data analytics. Analytics Engines helps companies answer the question, “Where is my data and how can I use it?” To build the very large-scale distributed systems that many companies need today to run big data analytics, there are many components. With a rapid increase of enterprise and open source data available, we are surrounded by data, but it needs to be analysed in the right way and with the right tools to offer valuable insights.

    Analytics Engines’ flagship product, AE StackBuilder, can pull data of any type from any source. The solution can be deployed to the customer’s cloud environment or onto their in-house servers.

    What’s so interesting about big data, anyway? Leigh-Ann Jackson, head of enterprise and partnerships, said, “Big data offers large or small companies a foot-up over competitors if they use it correctly. Being able to view internal and external influencing factors through analytics is so valuable to making companies more efficient or innovative. Being able to then predict what those factors are and what could happen is key. Big data offers that capability; it’s just a matter of bringing your data into one place and using the right tools to piece the 

    story together.”

    Analytics Engines was founded in 2008 out of ECIT, focusing initially on high performance computing, mainly in the finance and oil and gas industries. It eventually moved into big data analytics, and has made a name for itself with three key selling points. The software is (i) rapidly deployable – in just thirty minutes a bespoke infrastructure can be ready to use; (ii) flexible and modular, responding to the customer’s own business requirements; (iii) able to bring together open-source technologies for enterprise-scale analytics.

    I asked whether a customer had to be large for the data to be of value. “No, it’s not always about the size of the company – it’s about what they are doing with their data and how complex they want to get with their decision making,” said Leigh-Ann. The value is in the ability to analyse diverse data from various data sets in one environment so you can see the bigger picture. For example, a company in life sciences will use data generated from clinical trials, patient records, and peer-collated genome projects. In manufacturing, a business decision might be fuelled by data drawn from the supply chain, plant and maintenance, employee records – even weather forecasts that impact raw material supplies.

    Analytics Engines is a fast-growing company that address a large market. From within Belfast’s corner of big data expertise, the company has developed a reputation for innovation.


    Pictured: Leigh-Ann Jackson of Analytics Engines

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