StateTech Magazine

13 Big Data Resources for State and Local Governments

Jimmy Daly — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 15:42:12 +0000

You’ve heard the line a million times: “Big Data is a big deal.”

It’s cliché to utter those words in 2013, but the sentiment has never been more accurate. Governments stand to benefit in a big way from properly analyzed Big Data. With the amount of public transit, healthcare and public-safety data governments have access to, there are countless ways the public sector could use the information to save money and improve services.

The private sector is already proving that Big Data can be put to work cutting budgets. Here are a few examples from Government Technology’s Big Data, Big Promise report:

Google discovered that certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity, and created Google flu trends to estimate current flu activity around the world in near real time. The company found that its search query count-based flu activity estimates are in sync with observations from traditional flu surveillance systems.

Opower, an energy software company, partners with 75 energy utilities to collect data from more than 50 million homes. Its big data platform analyzes the data and provides recommendations for reducing usage via email, text message, websites and social media. The company says it saved consumers $200 million in energy costs in 2012.

Trucking company US Xpress analyzes 900 data types — including sensor data from tires and engines, fuel usage and geospatial data — from tens of thousands of trucking systems. The company even factors in complaints posted on trucker blogs. The results of its analyses are used to optimize fleet usage and have led to millions of dollars of cost savings each year.

We regularly cover the implantation of Big Data on the state and local level. There is some fascinating work being done that other governments can leverage for inspiration. To encourage innovation in your government, take a look at the following 13 Big Data resources:

How Digital Media Is Revolutionizing Citizen Engagement

Cherilyn Winkler — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:26:06 +0000

Citizen engagement with national and local government has been transformed by the digital age. Americans are increasingly utilizing mobile technology and social media to increase participation and interaction.

A survey conducted by Pew Internet tested the temperature of online citizen engagement. Among the fascinating insights, here are a few key questions the survey answered.

Who is behind the surge in online engagement?

The survey found that 67 percent of 18–24 year olds participated in politics via social media. Younger generations have a voracious desire for participatory tools such as social media. The millennial generation is demanding and strongly opinionated.

Exciting subject matter, such as politics, can be the catalyst for this generation to become part of a movement. As evidenced by the 2008 presidential election, the confluence of social media and young people has the power to profoundly impact the digital age.

Increased mobility has positively affected younger generations’ participation in society. Many young people have access to a mobile device, and they flock to social media apps that provide hot topics at their fingertips.

Which platforms are driving citizen engagement?

As StateTech reported in April, civic engagement via social media has been on the rise.

In 2013, local government will connect to citizens via mobile services and social media, accelerating a new type of citizen–government relationship. Citizens themselves are driving much of this shift because their adoption of mobile devices changes the ways government information and services are accessed.

Effective government outreach has a lot to do with understanding the target audience. The survey found that 60 percent of adults use social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. These platforms are an important component of a successful government communication strategy.

The proliferation of social media has a lot to do with ease of access. These platforms can be accessed anywhere at anytime. Liking something on Facebook takes little to no effort, yet it can be a powerful expression of loyalty and sentiment.

Social media documents issues for the world to see. Pictures and video now accompany citizen engagement. Social media has almost no filter. Once a statement or photo is out there, deleting it can be next to impossible.

Will social networking make governments more transparent?

According to the survey, 39 percent of adults participated in national or local government via social media.

Interaction between citizens and government has traditionally taken place in a town hall meeting or a snail-mail letter to a government representative. With social media, citizens can instantly interact with the government.

The mobile component of social media will continue to be important in this interaction. For example, if a citizen witnesses a community issue, she can on-the-spot tweet the local government to document her experience or express an opinion.

It is increasingly considered taboo for government agencies and representatives not to have a social media presence. There is a push to appear transparent by allowing citizens access across a variety of platforms.

Here is a look at some of the other findings. Check out the entire survey here.

How Connectivity Powers Public Safety in Conyers, Ga.

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 16:23:53 +0000

At the Georgia International Horse Park in Conyers, Ga., event vendors now have a new way to connect to the Internet. Using the Rocket from Utility, the city can provide them with a wireless mobile hotspot so they can conduct retail business from anywhere within the expansive 1,400 acre grounds.

But the primary motivation for the city of Conyers’ purchase was to improve the connectivity and field productivity of its police force, explains Christopher J. Fisher, MsCIs, information technology director.

“We’re able to keep more officers out there doing what they need to be doing — patrolling and keeping the city safe rather than having to come back to the office to write reports. They can do all that from the car now, so they really have a true mobile office,” Fisher explains.

Conyers purchased a total of 59 Rocket mobile gateway units, made by Utility, a mobile resource management company based in nearby Tucker, Ga. Full deployment was complete in February 2010.

Police officers benefit from these mobile units’ fast, secure broadband Internet and wireless connectivity. The Rocket boosts the reach of cellular coverage, providing rapid access to information. Conyers field inspectors and code enforcement officers have added mobile capabilities too, thanks to the Rockets.

Before equipping its police vehicles with Rockets, officers in the field accessed public safety software over radio airwaves — an unreliable connection that severely limited their field capabilities. “They were just basically able to get calls and that was it,” Fisher notes.

Conyers piloted several other options before choosing the Rockets. Air cards alone routinely lost connections in the city’s dead spots, requiring time-consuming rebooting once connectivity could be re-established. Mobile access routers improved speed in full coverage areas, but connectivity was still an issue when a signal was unavailable.

Fisher explains that the Rockets offer a roughly 80 percent improvement over their previous environment, citing the external antenna as helpful in boosting their signal for faster, more continuous connectivity. The fact that the units are wireless is a big plus, too, given their limited IT staff.

“The Rockets are much more convenient,” says Fisher. “It’s hard to run cable because of all the cages and equipment in the police cars. It’s easy to just drop the Rocket into place and connect it. It’s not a lot of fuss and setup — it’s basically plug and play. If we can streamline a device like that, it makes our lives a whole lot easier.”

Officers can now send and receive email, complete reports in the field and even use their Rocket-equipped vehicles as mobile command posts, since each unit can connect multiple devices. This feature is indispensable when officers are called to assist with emergency response.

The Rocket’s GPs features are integrated with Conyers’ CAD system, which maps calls and tracks police vehicles in the field, providing realtime data on department resources. The city also plans to deploy a citywide camera system that will align with the Rocket’s capabilities, allowing responders to focus resources on incidents more quickly.

Download our free Public Safety Solution Guide for more examples of police departments leveraging technology.

The Big Data Stress Test for IT Infrastructure [#Infographic]

Cherilyn Winkler — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 15:13:00 +0000

Now that every aspect of life is condensed into bytes and pixels, government IT professionals face the pressing issue of how to store and protect all of this data indefinitely.

Big Data has become synonymous with IT infrastructure challenges. There is a $26.5 billion loss in revenue during IT downtime each year. To save the budget, many IT managers have turned to cloud backup.

“The cloud is making access to infrastructure, platform and software as services available in a low-cost, effective way that was not imagined even 15 years ago,” State of Illinois CIO Sean Vinck told StateTech in the Winter 2013 issue.

Data recovery is paramount, but for some government agencies the cloud is a difficult pill to swallow. As StateTech reported in March, the government technology community has been slow to adopt the cloud backup system:

Because many governments run legacy technologies, it is not always cost effective to move operations into the cloud. If those applications and services are hosted locally, IT loses control of performance. This issue stands in the way of nearly every service that governments consider moving, and it has slowed the move to the cloud. By preparing as many services to move as they can, they will future-proof much of their technology.

The infographic below outlines more trends in online backup and illustrates where Big Data is heading.

This infographic originally appeared on Backblaze.

Product Review: BlackBerry Z10 Boasts Enhanced Security

Wayne Rash — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 11:00:00 +0000

To say that the RIM BlackBerry Z10 is new is an understatement. This first-generation mobile platform boasts a high-quality touch screen, long battery life and support for speedy Long Term Evolution wireless communications.

But behind the pretty face lies an industrial strength, real-time operating system similar to what’s used in avionics, automotive computers, industrial control systems and the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

The BlackBerry 10 QNX-based OS was originally developed for demanding use where reliability is required and failure isn’t an option. But it’s also accessible, easy to use and somewhat different from run-of-the-mill operating systems. Those differences show up throughout the product line, from the BlackBerry Hub unified communications center to BlackBerry Flow, which enables sharing of information between apps. Touching a name on a list, for example, displays everything from that person’s contact information to their latest tweets.

End-User Advantages

The BlackBerry Z10 will be familiar to users who have experience with smartphones. Touch an icon to launch an app, wipe the screen sideways to move to a new one, and tilt to shift to a portrait or landscape view as required.

But there’s more. Move the home screen slightly to the right, and the BlackBerry Hub unified inbox of email, text messages, phone calls and alerts appears. Swipe up from the bottom to minimize an app while it continues to run. In fact, the true multitasking device runs up to eight apps at the same time.

The Z10 keyboard, designed for accuracy, offers a welcome improvement over other touch-screen typing experiences. The BlackBerry’s predictive typing learns from use and displays predicted words directly above the keys, where a flick of the finger can insert them into the text.

Why It Works for IT

The BlackBerry Z10 and other devices using the same OS (such as the Q10 and Q5) take BlackBerry’s familiar security to a new level with BlackBerry Balance. This mobile device management feature enables sandboxing of users’ business and personal data.

130,000

The number of apps available for the BlackBerry 10 OS in the BlackBerry World app store

Balance divides the BlackBerry into two independent virtual devices — one for personal communications and the other for work. The virtual devices are completely separate, so information from one can’t enter the other. Balance requires BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) 10, which is already deployed in many organizations using BlackBerry devices.

The BlackBerry Z10 fully supports Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, and because of the strong encryption that BlackBerry uses in BES, IT departments can allow secure connections through the firewall. With an add-on encryption card and BlackBerry Balance, the Z10 even supports classified information. The existing encryption extends to the BlackBerry Messenger text messaging service included in the Z10.

The combination of BES and ActiveSync make managing the Z10 relatively easy. The device fits right in with existing BlackBerry implementations, and the management software makes transferring information to the new devices quick and trouble-free.

Disadvantages

The BlackBerry World store doesn’t contain as many applications as do app stores for other devices. However, BlackBerry has released a development toolkit supporting easy conversion of Android apps to BlackBerry 10.

This Civic Hacker Mapped Every Library and Museum in the United States

Jimmy Daly — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:38:07 +0000

Hacking isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, in the case of the National Day of Civic Hacking, it’s a really good thing.

This collaboration between governments and businesses is designed to spark innovation in government services, improve transparency and make use of open data. This year, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a federal agency, participated “by providing data and challenges for civic hackers to hack on.” One of the participants took the opportunity to turn some of the agency’s data into two beautiful maps that detail the locations of every library and museum in America. The results show exactly why this kind of event is necessary.

As Emily Badger of The Atlantic Cites mentions, libraries are available to more Americans than any fast food-chain is:

“There’s always that joke that there’s a Starbucks on every corner," says Justin Grimes, a statistician with the Institute of Museum and Library Services in Washington. "But when you really think about it, there’s a public library wherever you go, whether it’s in New York City or some place in rural Montana. Very few communities are not touched by a public library.”

In fact, libraries serve 96.4 percent of the U.S. population, a reach any fast-food franchise can only dream of.

Below you can interact with Grimes’ maps. To see the data he used to build them, click here.

Every Library in America

Every Museum in America

What You Need to Know About Apple's WWDC 2013

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 16:53:21 +0000

Apple announced a slew of new products — both hardware and software — at yesterday's World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco, Calif. Continuing its push to unify the mobile and desktop experiences, Apple introduced several cloud services in addition to Mac OS X Mavericks and iOS 7. Here's a closer look at the best of WWDC 2013.

iOS 7

Say goodbye to the trademark skeuomorphic design of Apple's mobile operating system. The new software is entirely "flat," creating a more sleek, modern experience.
Folders will no longer be confined to 12 or 16 apps (depending on which model iPhone you use), thanks to pages within folders. Users can swipe right or left while in a folder to access more apps and bookmarks.
Apps such as Safari, Music and Photos are completely redesigned. The Photos app will pull metadata from images to organize albums by location and time. The Camera app will feature Instragram-like filters and an option to shoot square photos.
The all-new Control Center, as described by The Verge:

By dragging up from the bottom of the screen, users can access a new feature called Control Center, which includes easy access to a variety of options, including brightness, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi. The menu pulls upward in a frosted-glass style translucent pane — from there, users can toggle rotation lock, airplane mode, media controls, and AirPlay, as well as view their open apps. Adding quick-access controls like these have been a popular jailbreak tweak, and clearly Apple has taken that to heart.
Just as the rumors predicted, iTunes Radio will bring Pandora-like music to the iPhone, according to All Things D:

Just like Pandora, users can create radio stations based on songs they’re listening to. And, yes, iTunes Radio lets you share those stations you create with friends. You’re also able to flip through curated channels picked by the dudes at Apple, and even select a channel based on what’s trending on Twitter.

OS X Mavericks

Apple isn't leaving the desktop to rot while pouring all of their resources into mobile. In fact, the new desktop operating system — named OS X Mavericks, after a surfing beach in California — is more powerful than ever.

Finally, users will be able to sort through their Finder using tabs, just like a web browser. Third-party app PathFinder has offered this for some time, and this feature should be a welcome update.
In addition to a new calendar app, users will get to enjoy Apple Maps, a desktop application that will be able to push turn-by-turn directions to mobile devices.

Peep Apple's new Maps app for OS X #Mavericks: apple.com/apple-events/j… #3Dswag + portability btwn mobile/desktop twitter.com/nowthisnews/st…

— NowThis News (@nowthisnews) June 10, 2013
Devices will be faster, too, explains TechCrunch:

The new OS X also includes new CPU management tools, which, according to Apple reduces CPU usage by up to 72%. Apple also retooled the memory processes and now claims to have utilized a new method that compresses inactive memory into one place, freeing up space in the process. Plus, Apple claims this improves processes like wakeup time by up to 1.5x times.

MacBook Air and Mac Pro

The MacBook Air 13.3-inch edition boasts 12-hour battery life and a faster processor, along with other improvements, reports The Verge:

The new Intel HD Graphics 5000 is also said to bring a 40 percent increase in GPU performance, though it's worth noting the processors Apple is using here don't include the power hungry Iris graphics that are said to offer discrete-like performance. Other than the new power plant, there are some other changes to the MacBook Air. The new models have 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and flash storage is said to be up to 45 percent faster than the last generation.

Apple Updates MacBook Air With Haswell CPU, Claims All-Day Battery Life Up To 12 Hours tcrn.ch/12BfsaD by @romaindillet

— TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) June 10, 2013
The updated Mac Pro is a desktop workhorse. Apple has loaded this machine with as much power and speed as possible, according to Macworld:

The new 9.9-inch tall Mac Pro case is about one-eighth the size of the Mac Pro tower. The entire top of the Mac Pro is a handle for carrying, and motion sensor lights show the I/O ports. The new design, according to [Apple senior vice president Phil] Schiller, is based around a “unified thermal core” to help keep the machine cool.

At the heart of the Mac Pro is a Xeon E5 processor, which is based on Intel’s Ivy Bridge microarchitecture and introduced by the company last April. Configurations with 12-cores will be available, and all Mac Pros will use third-generation PCI Express architecture. Apple is also using 1866MHz ECC DDR3 RAM.

Schiller also went to great lengths to emphasize the new Mac Pro’s graphics performance. The machine will have dual AMD FirePro workstation-class GPUs, and be able to run three 4K displays at one time. Apple says the new Mac Pro's graphics performance is 2.5 times faster than its predecessor.

iCloud

The iWork suite will now include cloud-based software for word processing, spreadsheets and slide show presentations, similar to Google Drive and Microsoft 365. The software will also be entirely compatible with Microsoft Office.
iCloud Keychain will store passwords in the cloud and autofill login forms.

iCloud has sent 800 billion iMessages and 7.4 trillion push notifications, Tim Cook said. #WWDC

— Nick Bilton (@nickbilton) June 10, 2013

What was your favorite announcement from WWDC 2013? Let us know in the Comments section.

Communities Go Mobile on Multiple Fronts

Steve Zurier — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Public Wi-Fi has had its ups and downs, but in the city of Staunton, Va., a young mother can now stream her son’s little league baseball game in the Shenandoah Valley via tablet to his grandparents.

“It’s really gratifying that we can deliver this service and actually have government improve people’s lives,” says Kurt Plowman, chief technology officer for Staunton.

It’s been a long haul for the city, Plowman says. Staunton first experimented with Wi-Fi in 2002 at the public library. But at the time, many community Wi-Fi projects were failing to materialize, and Staunton didn’t want to pursue a project of that scale. The city faced a financial crisis in 2008, so money was scarce for investing in infrastructure.

Last year, finally, the city installed 35 linear miles of fiber and deployed 30 Enterasys access points. Twelve of them are located in the 214-acre Gypsy Hill Park, which hosts ballgames, concerts and a farmer’s market. The remaining APs were deployed in city buildings.

“Deploying the fiber and added APs put us in a position to support BYOD,” Plowman says. “I got a separate Internet connection just for public Internet access. People come and do genealogy research and can have access whenever they need it.”

Chris Silva, an industry analyst for the Altimeter Group, says today organizations are often more focused on what they can do with mobile technology, rather than which platform they’re using. He says Staunton’s experience with rolling out public Wi-Fi to improve service to local residents and tourists is a case in point.

62%

The percentage of executives and IT managers who say better communications and knowledge sharing are the primary benefits of mobile technology

SOURCE: “Business Technology Innovation: Six Key Trends in Optimizing IT for Competitive Advantage” (Ventana Research, December 2012)

“What’s stood out to me the past several months is that we’re moving away from caring about the device and are focused more on experiences and services,” Silva says. “People want to access the information that’s critical to them, regardless of screen or location.”

The Convenience of iPads

Technology has also come to Cornelius, N.C., a lakeside town along Lake Norman in Mecklenburg County.

About two years ago, the town commissioners started using Apple iPad devices to reduce the printing and distribution of paper agendas. Larry Davis, IT manager, says Cornelius used to print 18 1.5-inch-thick binders before each commissioners meeting.

“Now all of that has gone away because we do it electronically,” Davis says, adding that over the past couple of years, the department heads and the town manager also use iPad devices to complete daily tasks.

“It’s really great when people travel,” says Davis. “Instead of lugging along a heavy notebook, they can just throw the iPad in their bag. And once we install VDI with VMware View, the staff will be able to bring up their desktop wherever they go.”

Davis says plans are in the works to install iPads in the town’s police cars and firetrucks. “Before any rollout, we’ll do a proof of concept to test it out,” he notes.

6 Mobile Data Management Trends

As mobility permeates the enterprise, the following trends are shaping deployments, according to Jesse Lipson, vice president and general manager of data sharing for Citrix

1. VPNs are disappearing. It’s clumsy and inconvenient for users to connect via VPN, especially when more organizations store their data in the cloud.

2. Active Directory integration is tops. Lipson says organizations use an average of 30 software as a service apps, which are most commonly integrated with Active Directory Federation Services.

3. Physical tokens will go away. Client certificate authentication will replace traditional two-factor authentication as mobile device management software makers increasingly provide these certificates. Many organizations also use text messages for the second factor of authentication.

4. Autologin takes hold. Most enterprises realize that it’s unreasonable to ask users to enter their credentials at every login of their smartphones or tablets. Four-digit PINs are acceptable to users and offer some added security when autologin is enabled.

5. On-premises storage survives. Organizations see this as a way to maintain security, compliance and convenience. They also have a considerable amount of legacy storage that needs to be accessed via mobile devices.

6. IT groups debate the “open-in” question. The IT team must decide whether to let apps open data in other apps and strike a balance between security and convenience.

How to Choose MAM Software

Craig J. Mathias — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Deploying a successful enterprise mobility management plan hinges on a number of elements: the mobile devices themselves, the applications, expense management, personnel and policies.

Of these, the mobile application management (MAM) space is one of the most interesting. Managing mobile applications can be the key to secure, manageable and cost-effective mobile operations.

But because MAM remains a rapidly evolving technology, selecting the right products and services can be a complex undertaking. IT leaders must first understand the scope of MAM and how it’s different from the more common mobile device management (MDM).

Whereas MDM focuses on device configuration, basic security (local encryption, antimalware and antivirus, firewalls, and related capabilities and policies), MAM is all about making sure that only authorized applications are running on the device or in the cloud, and that (in many cases) the sensitive data accessed by those apps is protected. The potential benefits are undeniable.

To get the most out of MAM, take the following steps:

1. Define objectives before selecting a MAM solution.

Before settling on a product, define operational objectives, policies and user agreements regarding mobility — particularly with respect to security, budgets, expense management, support and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) initiatives — to set the scope of the capabilities required in a proposed MAM solution.

2. Decide on an overall MAM technical strategy.

Several MAM solutions use a technique called application wrapping, in which an app’s scope of function is limited by policies set in a given MAM product. While no new coding is usually required here, some software development resources may be needed to assure proper implementation. There’s also a role for virtualization, particularly on the device side with apps running in the cloud. This eases overall implementation but places more burden on the network. And finally, dual-persona solutions create and isolate the personal and business sides of a mobile device to eliminate personal apps as a mobile management concern. Enterprise apps and associated data are completely isolated and protected.

3. Match functional capabilities to requirements.

While today’s evolving MAM solutions offer a broad range of features, at the core is the ability to distribute authorized applications (typically via an enterprise app store function) and the ability to allow or deny the execution of particular apps (commonly known as whitelisting or blacklisting).

Keep in mind that some MAM solutions allow sensitive data to be containerized or sandboxed. This prevents unauthorized copying and distribution and enables the selective destruction of enterprise data on compromised devices rather than the brute-force device wiping of most MDM solutions.

4. Check for overlap, conflicts and integration issues.

Depending on how they’re implemented, MAM systems can provide some degree of overlap with other enterprise mobility management strategies and solutions. That’s why staged rollouts are recommended. IT managers must evaluate any proposed solution in terms of how it will fit the management strategies and systems already in place. Management visibility is vital, both through real-time monitoring of activity and alerts, and detailed management reports, which are key to auditing usage and discovering potential problems.

MAM offers one of the most interesting and productive pieces of overall enterprise mobility management and — with just a few cautionary notes — one of the most effective as well.

Breaking Down Big Data by Volume, Velocity and Variety

StateTech Staff — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 11:30:00 +0000

Big Data is often described in terms of three V’s: volume, velocity and variety. Let's dive into what exactly that means and how state and local governments can begin to tackle Big Data.

Volume

The hard disk drives that stored data in the first personal computers were minuscule compared to today’s hard disk drives. Storage volumes have grown because data volumes have grown, whether it’s the space required to run a modern operating system or data sets that are used to map genomes. Despite the fact that multiterabyte hard disk drives cost as little as $100, the advent of data such as high-definition video ensures that users will fill up those drives in short order.

Velocity

The challenge isn’t just that the world today generates lots of data; it generates data quickly — at high velocity — often in real time. Consider a modern IP video camera used to monitor a bridge crossing. Software can analyze the incoming video data to alert security professionals if a suspicious package appears on the bridge that wasn’t in previous video frames.

But to be effective, this analysis must happen as rapidly as the video data enters the system. In this case, velocity pertains not only to how quickly data is generated, but also to how quickly someone interprets and acts upon it.

Another source of high-velocity data is social media. Twitter users are estimated to generate nearly 100,000 tweets every 60 seconds. This comes in addition to almost 700,000 Facebook posts and more than 100 million emails a minute. Somewhere in that deluge is information related to an agency’s mission, perhaps from citizens voicing their dissatisfaction or seeking assistance.

Variety

Social media data is also a good example of the variety of information that characterizes Big Data. Social media information, like roughly 80 percent to 90 percent of all data today, is unstructured. It doesn’t arrive in neat records that are easily searchable. Unstructured data is often text heavy and doesn’t fit neatly into relational tables. Its explosion in recent years has driven the Big Data movement.

Sensors are another massive source of unstructured and semistructured data. Researchers at HP Labs estimate that by 2030, 1 trillion sensors will be in use. These sensors monitor conditions in the physical world, such as weather, energy consumption and environmental surroundings, as well as in cyberspace. Depending on the application, sensors can generate multiple terabytes of data per day.

Structured data is what comes to mind when thinking about traditional databases, filled with customer relationship management (CRM) records, statistics or financial transactions. One of the best opportunities presented by Big Data technologies is to bring together structured and unstructured data to reveal new insights.

Ironically, the challenge of Big Data actually begets even more data. Big Data (especially unstructured data) must be described in a way that software tools, such as business intelligence, analytics and query tools, can identify and ingest. That’s where metadata comes into play.

Metadata is data that describes data, making it discoverable across an enterprise infrastructure or even in the cloud. Agencies must manage metadata as well as the underlying data. The better they manage metadata, the more valuable their Big Data will be.

It's a complex issue for state and local governments to tackle but the potential benefits are enormous. Download our free white paper Proactive Planning for Big Data for more information.