Technological advancements and the exponential growth of information are reshaping business operations across numerous sectors, including government. The rate at which governments generate data and archive it digitally is accelerating, driven by the proliferation of mobile devices and apps, smart sensors, cloud computing solutions, and public-facing portals. As digital information expands in volume and complexity, managing, processing, storing, securing, and disposing of it becomes increasingly intricate. Emerging tools for capturing, searching, discovering, and analyzing data are enabling organizations to extract valuable insights from unstructured sources. The government sector is reaching a critical juncture, recognizing information as a strategic asset. Agencies must protect, leverage, and analyze both structured and unstructured data to better serve citizens and meet mission objectives. As government leaders evolve toward data-driven organizations to successfully achieve their missions, they are establishing the framework to correlate dependencies across events, personnel, processes, and information.
High-impact government solutions are emerging from the integration of the most disruptive technologies:
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Mobile devices and applications
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Cloud services
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Social business technologies and networking
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Big Data and analytics
Big Data serves as a key intelligent industry solution, empowering governments to make superior decisions by acting upon patterns revealed through the analysis of vast volumes of data—whether related or unrelated, structured or unstructured.
However, achieving these outcomes requires far more than merely accumulating large amounts of data. "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," Tom Kalil and Fen Zhao of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy noted in a post on the OSTP Blog.
The White House took a significant step toward assisting agencies in identifying 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 necessary to analyze it.
The challenges posed by Big Data are nearly as formidable as its promise is encouraging. Efficiently storing data is one such challenge. With budgets often tight, agencies must minimize the cost per megabyte of storage while ensuring data remains easily accessible so users can retrieve it as needed. Backing up massive data volumes further complicates this task.
Effectively analyzing data presents another major challenge. Many agencies utilize commercial tools to sift through vast amounts of data, identifying trends that enhance operational efficiency. (A recent MeriTalk study revealed that federal IT executives believe Big Data could help agencies save over $500 billion while also fulfilling 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 assisted medical researchers in identifying links that alert doctors to aortic aneurysms before they occur. It is also employed for routine tasks, such as filtering resumes to match job candidates with hiring managers.
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