Gartner recently stated that all industries and levels of government agree the top three game-changing technologies today are AI/machine learning, data analytics/predictive analytics and cloud technologies. However, there are some primary sticking points when it comes to innovation in these areas. Government organizations continue to encounter challenges when trying to pursue these initiatives due to complex security and compliance requirements, poor scalability of legacy IT infrastructure, and perceived risks associated with cloud and IT modernization efforts. How can these challenges be addressed?
One solution to these concerns is being addressed by Databricks, a leader in Unified Analytics and founded by the original creators of Apache Spark™, and Booz Allen Hamilton, a leading provider of machine learning services to the U.S. Federal Government, by announcing the two companies are teaming up to provide a Unified Analytics solution to meet the U.S. government’s mission requirements on any data, anywhere. Booz Allen Hamilton will integrate Databricks’ product and the open source technology Delta Lake into its Open Data Platform and offer the unique ability to deploy on cloud, hybrid, or on-premises infrastructure along with their expert services for data science and data engineering.
According to Gartner, ‘When asked what technology areas will be game changers, all industries and levels of government see the top three game-changing technologies as artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning, data analytics/predictive analytics and cloud technologies.’[1] However, right now the industry continues to see government organizations encounter challenges when trying to pursue these initiatives due to complex security and compliance requirements, poor scalability of legacy IT infrastructure, and perceived risks associated with cloud and IT modernization efforts.
“By leveraging a solution that integrates Databricks’ product and Delta Lake into the Booz Allen Hamilton Open Data Platform, government organizations can accelerate current data initiatives no matter where their data lives today,” said Dan Tucker, Vice President at Booz Allen Hamilton. “Many of our clients are interested in moving to cloud but leverage on premise or hybrid environments today. The joint solution is designed to improve the reliability and performance of today’s on premise infrastructure and makes future migration to cloud faster and easier because these workloads can also run on the secure, cloud-based version of Databricks Unified Analytics Platform.”
The Booz Allen Hamilton Open Data Platform (ODP) features best-of-breed open source software to manage the full lifecycle of big data from ingest to insight. Exclusive to this partnership, U.S. government clients can rapidly deploy state of the art big data and analytics technology with Databricks’ product and Delta Lake on cloud, hybrid, or on premise infrastructure with integrated security and compliance capabilities.
“Booz Allen Hamilton and Databricks recognize Federal customers are at varying levels of adoption when it comes to cloud adoption. Together we are providing a solution that is ready now and future proof,” said Michael Hoff, senior vice president of Business Development and Partners at Databricks. “The ability to gain new insights for data-driven decisions is no longer limited by legacy infrastructure or complex security and compliance requirements. Our solution set enables organizations to gain value, regardless of where they are in the IT modernization journey, and it provides a path for continued evolution.”
This partnership expands upon recent client projects of Databricks and Booz Allen Hamilton to deliver high-scale data engineering and data science use cases for government agencies. Customer examples include: a government agency is working with Booz Allen Hamilton and Databricks to ingest and transform data from multiple streaming sources and make the data ready for data scientists and analysts in real time. These users perform interactive data exploration and advanced analytics at scale including geospatial and spatiotemporal correlations. Another government agency is working with Booz Allen Hamilton and Databricks to move an on-premise data lake to a public cloud provider to develop advanced analytics on structured and unstructured data while maintaining sophisticated security controls. This solution lowered infrastructure cost by reducing several million hours of compute resources for the same workload and also enabled elastic scaling and easier collaboration for users. In recognition of these clients projects and impact in the market, Databricks recently awarded Booz Allen Hamilton as its 2019 Industry Partner of the Year.
Contributed by Daniel D. Gutierrez, Managing Editor and Resident Data Scientist for insideAI News. In addition to being a tech journalist, Daniel also is a consultant in data scientist, author, educator and sits on a number of advisory boards for various start-up companies.
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