Technological advancements and the exponential growth of information are fundamentally transforming business operations across numerous industries, including the public sector. Government data generation and digital archiving are accelerating, driven by the rapid proliferation of mobile devices and applications, smart sensors, cloud computing solutions, and citizen-facing portals. As digital information expands and becomes increasingly complex, the tasks of managing, processing, storing, securing, and disposing of that data also become more intricate. New tools for capture, search, discovery, and analysis are enabling organizations to extract valuable insights from their unstructured data. The government sector is reaching a critical juncture, recognizing information as a strategic asset. Governments must now protect, leverage, and analyze both structured and unstructured data to better serve citizens and meet mission requirements. As government leaders strive to evolve into data-driven organizations to successfully achieve their missions, they are establishing the foundation to correlate dependencies across events, people, processes, and information.
High-impact government solutions will emerge from a combination 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 a transformative industry solution, allowing governments to make better decisions by taking action based on patterns revealed through the analysis of large volumes of data—whether related or unrelated, structured or unstructured.
However, achieving these capabilities requires more than just accumulating massive quantities 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 wrote 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 maximize the potential of the Big Data explosion and the tools necessary to analyze it.
The challenges posed by Big Data are nearly as daunting as the opportunities are encouraging. Efficient data storage is one such challenge. With budgets always tight, agencies must minimize the per-megabyte cost of storage while ensuring data remains easily accessible so users can retrieve it whenever and however they need it. Backing up massive amounts of data further intensifies this challenge.
Effective data analysis is another major hurdle. Many agencies utilize commercial tools that enable them to sift through mountains of data, identifying trends that can enhance operational efficiency. (A recent MeriTalk study found that federal IT executives believe Big Data could help agencies save more than $500 billion while also fulfilling mission objectives.)
Custom-developed Big Data tools are also enabling agencies to address their analytical needs. For example, 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 used for more routine tasks, such as sifting through resumes to match job candidates with hiring managers.
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