Virtualization and Cloud executives share their predictions for 2015.  Read them in this VMblog.com series exclusive.

Contributed article by Patrick McFadin, chief evangelist for Apache Cassandra at DataStax

2015: More companies break away from the pack with real-time data analytics

Real-time data analytics is inspiring innovation beyond advertising and marketing. More companies are breaking away from the pack and differentiating themselves by the powerful things they're doing with the data, such as creating truly captivating content and entertainment, and discovering and treating fast-progressing killer diseases. Here's what lies ahead for 2015, as real-time data analytics gains traction in the enterprise:  

• Machine learning will proliferate. Personalization has already become more of a requirement for businesses, but we will see more projects and vendors making this turnkey for enterprises. It's necessary to stay minimally competitive in today's market.
• Internet of Things and mobile will lead to a storm surge of data, leading companies to demand greater speed, scale and performance. As a result, we'll see the proliferation of Docker as it changes how infrastructure is deployed, and Spark will be the de-facto way of analyzing large-scale data.
• The complexity barrier to real-time analytics will drop. We will see enterprise-level organizations using real-time analytics, previously reserved for just a few. Vendors will continue to create ready-to-use products that once required a custom engineering effort. Organizations looking to buy vs. build will take advantage of these solutions to bring new features online faster.
• Multi-vendor cloud deployments become commonplace. By decoupling data it drives down costs. Amazon is the biggest cloud vendor, but rivals such as Google Compute and Microsoft Azure are quickly catching up and creating pricing pressure. By staying away from vendor-specific offerings, organizations will increasingly deploy in multiple clouds based on cost, and save money.

##