The latest addition to the family of eProseed services is destined for a great future! After the announcement of eProseed SmartCloud, it is now the big and fast data universe and its vast economic potential that the Capellen based company is ready to address with its customers. Called Data Essential, the new spin-off is based around a key partnership agreement with Pivotal, the Big Data subsidiary of EMC federation. Data Essential is ready to demonstrate to the market the power and efficiency of “3rd generation platform” solutions.
“Everything began with the conclusion, obvious, but rich in opportunities, that if everyone is talking about Big Data, no-one is actually doing it” says Geoffroy de Lamalle, Founder and CEO of eProseed. “A few months ago, we too were only at the “talking” stage with clients, with nothing concrete happening. Until we convinced an online game publisher to have confidence in us. We were thus able to accompany them in the implementation of one of the first Data Lakes in Luxembourg “.
Improve operations and generate new revenue streams
“This is a strategic project through which, one of the leaders for the massively multiplayer ‘free-to-play’ in the online gaming industry, has succeeded in it’s goal to speed up operations by adopting an integrated Big Data solution, and thus become the first implementation in Luxembourg to quickly create a Data Lake” said Jonathan Basse, CTO of Data Essential
The challenge was to develop a flexible and scalable solution, able to optimize the processing of information generated by the publisher’s on line games, enabling them to store, organize, analyze and ultimately transform dozens of TBs of data collected from its 110 million players. Data that the company was then able to translate directly into improvements in terms of games, customer experience – players in this case – and new revenue streams. “With this project we reached the two fundamental objectives that any use case for Big Data should deliver, that is: improve operations to ensure a leadership position in the market and generate new revenue streams” said Jonathan Basse.
Beyond technology, a methodology and business dimension
“This project was the starting point from which other customers have told us of their needs in Big Data. In response, we chose, on the one hand the creation of a dedicated structure – Data Essential, and on the other an alliance with a key partner, Pivotal, one of the companies of the EMC group, with whom we have carried out a joint reflection on the development of skills, both local and PSF ” the CEO of eProseed tells us.
What is exciting about EMC, continues Jonathan Basse, is that Pivotal has demonstrated its ability to deliver tangible results. Over and above the technology, which has been mature for some time, Pivotal brings methodology and operating layers for use of Big Data that responds to the expectations of our customers. It is this comprehensive approach that we intend to offer through Data Essential “.
3 different types of expertise for 1 Big Data Centre of Excellence in Luxembourg
“We will build on the advantages conferred by our partner, combined with the creation of an expert center in Luxembourg, to bring Big Data solutions to the market in a quick and easy way”, says Geoffrey de Lamalle. “Big Data is in fact based on two businesses: that of the data integrator that collects and collates information – it’s a job we already mastered in eProseed – and that of the ‘Data Science’ – experts who give a sense to the data. It is these latter profiles that Data Essential will provide to the BeNeLux market”.
We have identified three types of experts needed to build a team capable of meeting the market needs for Big Data. The first is what we call the ‘Data Platform Engineer’, capable of putting in place the underlying technologies and participating in the creation of the Data Lake. Over and above this layer of technology skills, we need to take on board two other profiles that need to work together – and they can sometimes be confused. This is on the one hand, the ‘Data Engineer’, who will lead and orchestrate data capture, internal or external, to power the Data Lakes, and the ‘Data Scientist’, on the other hand, who is midway between information technology and pure mathematics. Their mission is to apply exisiting mathematical models to question the Data Lake or develop new ones when required,” says the Data Essential CTO.
“Simple and complicated at the same time”
Many companies are wondering how to approach this new Eldorado. Developing an entity that is dedicated exclusively to Big Data, is a way of accompanying them on their journey It is also, especially at the initial stage, a way of providing them with training programs for the implementation of Big Data projects. “Beyond the Data Lake and statistical analysis practices that we will facilitiate,” says Jonathan Basse, “we also offer our customers solutions to exploit string output data. We envisage two use cases: either using raw information direclty within the business applications or using visualization or data mining technologies such as those offered by Tableau Software.
The 3rd generation platform
JB: “The message that we are bringing through the creation of Data Essential is that of the advent of the ‘Data and Process Driven Company’. Now that storage costs as computing power have become extremely affordable, companies need to ask themselves what they can usefully do”.
“We are at a crossroads,” intervenes Geoffroy de Lamalle. “We now have concrete answers to companies who question the relevance of Big Data to their acitivites. Companies that hold amounts of data that could be used immediately but who do not know how. Data Essential’s role is to accompany them for a while and show them the relevance of Big Data – powered by Pivotal and to demystify Big Data by succesfuly implementing the first solutions, “he concluded.
Interview by Michael Renotte
