GovConExec Paints the Big Picture on Big Data in Spring 2012 Issue
The White House announced its big data research and development initiative March 29 through which the government will begin to mine big data as the commercial sector has already begun to.
The Defense Department has indeed already pledged to use big data to develop autonomous systems as well as to combat cyber espionage.
Amidst all this market buzz on big data, GovConExec has launched its spring magazine, encapsulating and breaking down what’s behind the buzzword in its feature article: ” The Big Picture on Big Data.”
GovConExec, published by TheNewNewInternet’s parent company Executive Mosaic, launched its Spring 2012 issue Monday, featuring top government contracting executives’ takes on the big problems and opportunities the growing amount of data poses for both the public and private sector.
According to GovConExec, both civilian and defense agencies have more data than they know what to do with. The Air Force, for example, recently said it would be playing catch up when it came to deciphering and analyzing drone data for some time.
Peter Doolan, group president for Oracle public sector, tells GovConExec in addition to the new collections of data, old data plays a role too, now being re-purposed for military intelligence.
GovConExec points to the leap to the cloud as the change that cleared the way for big data to take center stage.
However, the technology that is behind it all is open source and Hadoop, software structures many government contracting firms build their foundations from.
Weighing in on the open source factor behind big data analytics is Red Hat’s public sector Vice President and General Manager Paul Smith as well as Microsoft’s Chief Technology Officer Susie Adams, who explains how her software company is adapting their assets to run big data workloads.
The components behind big data, however, may not be as large as the potential applications big data provides.
The Pentagon’s idea to use big data to find cyber spies poaching on networks is not a singular view as SAIC Inc. and Georgia Tech are looking to do similar things, applying big data techniques to detect insider threats.
Big data may indeed help defense officials and contracting firms discover malicious code or attackers, but big data itself poses a security concern that the magazine explores.
Kathy Warden, VP and GM for Northrop Grumman’s information systems, cyber intelligence division, tells GovConExec the approach her company is using to guard its large data sets from exposure to unauthorized users.
Rich Rosnthal, TASC CTO, tells GovConExec that the government, which is usually the performance and security standard setting body, should take advantage of the commercial sector’s forward thinking in order to reap the benefits analysis of larger data sets provides.
See the magazine for the full article on the big picture of big data. The GovCon Industry-focused magazine is available for subscription, here.
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