How Exasol enables you to simplify your data architecture while achieving well-governed data democratization
Once you have experienced analytics powered by Exasol, you’re likely to want more and your colleagues in other departments are also likely to want some of what you’re having. You have used your acceleration layer in Exasol in earnest or during a POV, and you were able to demonstrate a significant improvement for some of your most business-critical analyses and reports.
When you’re ready to give more people access to Exasol for their analyses, reporting, data modeling and processing, it’s time to elevate your BI acceleration layer and replace existing data marts with the Exasol database, and provisioning access to the relevant teams and departments to their data.
Scope your database
Before you increase the size of your database it is important to understand the use cases of the departments who will access it for analytics. What data volumes do they want to work with? What types of queries are they currently struggling with? How many power users and end users do they estimate for their different analytics and reporting requirements?
Getting these numbers right – or as right as possible – helps you ensure the resulting solution will be fit-for-purpose.
As you scope your database, keep in mind where you want to get to in the future. Is data democratization part of your analytics strategy? How do you want to enable more people to work with data to drive insights and support decision-making? And what Loading...data governance approach will you take to ensure data is secure but equally accessible for those who need it?
Test different use cases
During this process you can test the use cases of different departments, e.g. marketing, sales, production, etc. in your environment, be it a POV scenario or a database that is already fully implemented into your business processes and that has capacity for a test environment. Rather than giving other parts of the business a demonstration of what to expect, let them experiment with their own data and tools in a realistic setting. This gives them a clear idea of how they will benefit from using Exasol and ‘what’s in it for them’.
Spread the costs
Many organizations, especially large enterprises, use multiple analytics tools in their different teams and departments. This co-existence is not without technical challenges at times, but it also provides great opportunities for using the right tools at the right time for the right purpose. For reporting, Loading...visual analytics and general Loading...data visualization, there might be two or up to half a dozen tools in the business, while Data Scientists will also have personal preferences for using one tool or one language over another.
Thanks to Exasol’s fully flexible integration framework, you can use any front-end and analysis tool you wish and you can bring any Loading...data science language you want to use. This makes your original acceleration layer a very appealing solution for the wider business. Having all the data for analysis in one place and being able to connect with any tool means everyone can now benefit from ultimate performance and Loading...advanced analytics capabilities.
This also means that your analytics budget will stretch further because investing in one solution will bring benefits to every part of your organization, a good reason to ask the other departments to spread the costs and a great opportunity to show a strong return on investment.
Train your people
Once you are ready to grow the Exasol environment in your organization and to provide access to more teams and departments, it’s a good idea to build training into the process. For your people to get the most out of the solution, it’s important that they understand more about the tool they are using and how they should best be using it.
Regardless of their level of technical expertise, everyone working with data can gain confidence by familiarizing themselves with the components of the analytics stack in your organization and the best practices that come with it.
For our Exasol database, we offer free training courses on exacademy.exasol.com to help you empower your people with additional knowledge, skills and understanding.
As you move to the next part of your analytics journey and help your organization mature its analytics processes, it’s important to involve others and to drive data democratization to make data and insights more accessible across the business and to show its value for driving a competitive advantage for your organization.