Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2023.  Read them in this 15th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.

Trends in Data, Real Time Analytics and the Cloud

CelerData CEO James Li has provided his predictions for the important trends in the data and analytics space for 2023. The theme of his predictions revolves around cloud costs, real-time analytics and the edge.

Cloud Costs Will Be Scrutinized

Economic headwinds in the coming year will have business leaders putting their cloud costs, consumption models, and ROI under the microscope as they look for ways to control spending. The use and provisioning of cloud services and resources , as well as existing SaaS subscriptions, will be examined for potential reduction and cancellation. Expect more flexibility from cloud vendors when it comes to product development, service offerings, and pricing in response. This could be a great opportunity for businesses to negotiate for better terms as vendors fight to retain existing customers and compete for new business.

The Use of Real-Time Analytics Will Accelerate

2023 will be the year of real-time analytics (RTA as more enterprises look for every advantage they can get to stay competitive. This means doing more with less, and making the most of every piece of data you have. RTA offers enterprises the fastest path to generating new insights that allow you to act on opportunities before the competition.

With resources like data warehouses, data lakes, and analytics services in the cloud becoming commoditized, and new technologies like Iceberg helping to make analytics more democratized, RTA will give companies a new competitive advantage. RTA will empower employees and partners in ways that will make them more informed and productive.

Unified Analytics Become a Priority  

Real-time analytics (RTA) has a lot to offer today's enterprises, but building an RTA environment can be costly. Cost-conscious organizations will be reluctant to invest in building and maintaining two separate platforms for both RTA and batch analytics. Vendors who can effectively bring together multiple analytics capabilities on a single, unified analytics platform will distinguish themselves in 2023 by how much they're able to simplify data pipelines, streamline processes, improve data quality, and help enterprises produce timely, high quality insights.

Data Engineering Evolves

Maintaining legacy data pipelines can be a costly investment as  data engineers are constantly moving data across different platforms. This is a wasteful, inefficient allocation of talent and resources.

In 2023, recent developments in cloud architecture and Artificial Intelligence (AI) will fundamentally change how data is prepared, resulting in more efficient data engineering. These developments will bring about new products, architectures, and methodologies in the coming year that will improve the profiling, acquisition, and movement of data, all powered by AI.

Data Products Become Strategic Assets

The coming year will see the end of organizations treating their data products as disposable, one-time-use products. Designing for reusability is not only less wasteful, but thanks to smarter data management processes and technologies that can help businesses extract more value from their data, enterprises will begin to regard their data products as tangible, and valuable, assets.

For organizations that integrate their existing technologies and processes, and who take a holistic approach towards managing their complete data product lifecycle, including the production, recording, distributing, accounting, reporting, analyzing, and retiring of their data, 2023 will reward them with an unprecedented ROI for their data products.

Analytics at the Edge Go Mainstream

Analytics at the edge may not be a new concept, but 2023 will see more happening at the edge than ever before. Today's terminal devices are almost as powerful as a low-end server, and the increasing availability of 5G networks has enabled the transmission of more data at higher speeds. As more data is pushed to the edge, it will enable real-time decision making in the field, shorten response times, and reduce the compute, storage, and network costs of cloud infrastructure. For these reasons, along with lower technical barriers, we are sure to see greater adoption of analytics at the edge in 2023.

Web3 Will Enable Real Time Analytics Applications

Although no one knows what the third generation of the Internet will look like, one thing is certain: it won't be what we think it will be. Some of the use cases being touted today will likely never happen, while some that are unexpected will emerge to play a critical role. The sheer amount of data generated and used by Web3 infrastructure will push the envelope of today's capabilities, demanding the adoption of real-time analytics (RTA) to keep the wheels of progress turning. And while RTA is needed to actualize Web3, we will also see Web3 used to enable many RTA applications. This will create exciting opportunities for innovation in industries, like financial services, entertainment and media, and logistics and supply chain management.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James Li, Cofounder and CEO, CelerData

Serial entrepreneur and technology leader, James Li serves as CelerData’s CEO and chief visionary, working directly with enterprise leaders and their engineers to develop the next generation of real-time analytics solutions. With over a decade of experience heading digital transformation efforts at Microsoft, Baidu, and Xiaomi, James has made it his life’s work to shape the way technology helps power human decisions and accelerate progress around the world.