As every industry becomes more data-driven, it becomes increasingly crucial that everyone in an organisation- from the Heads of IT to the least tech-savvy business person- has access to the key information. But of course, the requirements of these personel differ wildly, and there is yet to emerge a single technology which combines the enterprise-class infrastructure needed for big data analytics, with usability features that open the data to every person on the payroll. This is where ThoughtSpot come in.
Today, Thoughtspot have opened their Relational Search Appliance- a platform combining an intuitive and stunning consumer-class interface with enterprise-class cluster management, fault tolerance and monitoring capabilities- to the public. Their goal is to build one platform that is both a joy to use and robust enough to handle the immense complexity and throughput of data that enterprises face today.
The need for one platform which ties together these two elements was reflected in the 2014 Gartner Magic Quadrant report. As ThoughtSpot CEO Ajeet Singh told Dataconomy, Gartner “moved all the vendors to the left in terms of ‘Completeness of Vision’. The point here seems to be that there is no single solution to address both the requirements of end-users- business users who are not very technical- as well as IT in enterprises, that require a certain amount of governance. This is the key area we are focused on.”
If there is a group of people who are capable of accomplishing this lofty task, it may well be ThoughSpot’s core team. Comprised mainly of Google and Yahoo alumni (as well as Bing, Amazon, Cisco, Oracle, and the co-founder of Nutanix at the helm), they noticed one particular innovation had touched almost every aspect of our digital lives- and that was search. Whether we’re researching, looking up contacts, or deciding which apps to buy, the search bar has become a deceptively powerful tool.
Thus ThoughtSpot’s user interface is search-based, allowing anyone in company to carry out simple searches in seconds. Behind the search bar is a powerful relational engine which ties together disparate data sources and returns billion-row results in milliseconds. The relational engine can cache data from a huge range of sources included Hadoop clusters, data warehouses, cloud storage and standard spreadsheets, and scales linearly.
ThoughtSpot estimate that a mere 25% of enterprise users have access to the data they need. If this figure is accurate, there is clear need for a tool that unites simplicity for the end-user with sophisticated tech- and ThoughtSpot are out to fill that need.
(Image source: ThoughtSpot)
