Technological advancements and the exponential growth of information are reshaping business operations across numerous sectors, including government. The volume of government data generation and digital archiving is surging, driven by the proliferation of mobile devices and applications, smart sensors and IoT devices, cloud computing solutions, and citizen-facing portals. As digital information becomes more expansive and complex, the management, processing, storage, security, and disposition of this data grow increasingly challenging. New tools for capture, search, discovery, and analysis are enabling organisations to extract valuable insights from unstructured data. The government sector is at a critical juncture, recognising information as a strategic asset. Governments must protect, leverage, and analyse both structured and unstructured data to enhance service delivery and meet mission requirements. As government leaders strive to evolve into data-driven organisations, they are laying the groundwork to correlate dependencies across events, people, processes, and information.
High-value government solutions will emerge 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 represents an intelligent industry solution that enables government bodies to make better decisions by acting on patterns revealed through the analysis of large volumes of data—both related and unrelated, structured and unstructured.
However, achieving these feats requires far more than simply accumulating massive quantities of data. "Making sense of these volumes of Big Data requires cutting-edge tools and technologies that can analyse and extract useful knowledge from vast and diverse streams of information," wrote Tom Kalil and Fen Zhao of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in a post on the OSTP Blog.
The White House took a significant step toward helping agencies identify these technologies by establishing the National Big Data Research and Development Initiative in 2012. This initiative allocated over $200 million to maximise the potential of the Big Data explosion and the tools required to analyse it.
The challenges posed by Big Data are nearly as daunting as its promise is encouraging. Efficient data storage is one such challenge. With budgets always tight, agencies must minimise the per-megabyte cost of storage while ensuring data remains easily accessible so users can retrieve it when and how they need it. Backing up massive quantities of data further intensifies this challenge.
Effective data analysis presents another major hurdle. Many agencies utilise commercial tools that allow them to sift through mountains of data, identifying trends that enhance operational efficiency. (A recent MeriTalk study found 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 address their data analysis 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 employed for more routine tasks, such as sifting through resumes to connect job candidates with hiring managers.
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