Technological advancements and the exponential growth of information are reshaping business operations across various sectors, including government. The volume of data generated by government entities and the rate of digital archiving are increasing rapidly, driven by the proliferation of mobile devices and applications, smart sensors, cloud computing solutions, and citizen-facing portals. As digital information expands in complexity, managing, processing, storing, securing, and disposing of it becomes increasingly challenging. New tools for capturing, searching, discovering, and analyzing data are enabling organizations to derive valuable insights from unstructured data. The government sector is at a critical juncture, recognizing information as a strategic asset. Agencies must now protect, leverage, and analyze both structured and unstructured information to better serve the public and meet mission objectives. As government leaders work to transform their organizations into data-driven entities, they are establishing the framework to correlate dependencies across events, people, processes, and information.
High-impact government solutions are emerging from the integration of several 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 a transformative industry solution that enables governments to make better decisions by acting on patterns identified through the analysis of vast volumes of data—whether related or unrelated, structured or unstructured.
However, achieving these results requires more than just collecting 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," noted 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 significant steps to assist agencies in identifying these technologies by launching 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 necessary analytical tools.
The challenges presented by Big Data are as formidable as its promise is encouraging. Efficiently storing data is one such challenge. With budgets always under pressure, agencies must minimize storage costs per megabyte while ensuring data remains easily accessible so users can retrieve it whenever and however they need it. Backing up massive data volumes further complicates this task.
Effective data analysis poses 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 found that federal IT executives believe Big Data could help agencies save over $500 billion while fulfilling mission objectives.)
Custom-developed Big Data tools are also enabling agencies to address 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 helped medical researchers identify links that alert doctors to aortic aneurysms before they occur. It is also used for routine tasks, such as screening resumes to match job candidates with hiring managers.
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