A friend of mine once said peanut butter and jelly are independently delicious, but magical together.
Similarly, a modern data platform and cognitive search are independently useful, and magical together. In fact, you should consider this combination a foundational part of your enterprise AI strategy.
Let’s explore why.
The anatomy of a modern data platform
Your organization is managing more data, in more places, and with more vendors than ever before. Cloud computing has radically improved the economics of managing and processing data at an exabyte scale. Organizations of all sizes use, or are moving to, modern data platforms for production systems as well as backup and recovery scenarios.
What makes a modern data platform? These six architectural elements leap to mind:
- Scalability: Modern data platforms must be highly scalable to handle the large volumes of data generated by modern applications and devices. The platform should be able to scale horizontally and vertically to handle increasing volumes of data and users. Additionally, the platform should be able to scale storage and processing capabilities independently as enterprise requirements evolve.
- Flexibility: You’re using more data services than ever, from traditional systems like SAP and Oracle, to developer-friendly options like MongoDB and Cassandra. A modern data platform should be able to handle data from a wide range of sources, including structured and unstructured data.
- Security: A modern data management platform must be highly secure to protect sensitive data from unauthorized access and cyberattacks. This is typically handled via role-based access controls (RBAC), to ensure that only authorized users can access data. Additionally, the platform should support data encryption at rest and in transit to protect data from theft or loss. Zero Trust principles are also increasingly popular with modern data platforms.
- Extensibility: Every modern system should be API-first, and support straightforward integration with other IT systems. This way, data can be easily ingested, processed, and analyzed by other systems and tools. Don’t underestimate the importance of this capability, since “security is a team sport.”
- Automation: Another upside to an API-first architecture: support for automation to enable rapid and efficient data processing and analysis. The platform should support the automation of data ingestion, data processing, and data analysis tasks to reduce manual effort and increase efficiency.
- Ready for insights and analytics: A modern data management platform must support a range of data analytics and visualization tools to enable organizations to extract insights and value from their data. The platform should support a range of data analysis and visualization tools, such as SQL-based analytics, machine learning, and natural language processing (NLP), to enable organizations to extract insights from their data.
If you’re a Cohesity customer, you already have a modern data platform, the Cohesity Data Cloud. In fact, there’s a good chance you picked our solution because of its architecture, performance, scalability, and extensibility.
Let’s consider the sixth attribute above—insights and analytics. This aspect factors into the next chapter of your business strategy, where AI and cognitive search unlock new value into your enterprise.
Cognitive search: Beyond the keyword
What is cognitive search? Cognitive search is an emerging search technology that combines artificial intelligence, natural language processing (NLP), and machine learning (ML). The goal of cognitive search is to understand the intent behind a user’s query, and deliver more relevant and accurate search results from large and complex data sources.
In traditional search engines like Google, users enter a few keywords and the search engine returns results based on those keywords. But as we all know, this approach can produce irrelevant or incomplete results, as the keywords may not accurately capture the user’s intent.
Cognitive search, on the other hand, is designed to understand the meaning behind the user’s query and deliver more relevant results. This is where natural language processing comes in. NLP enables the search engine to understand the intent behind the query, and machine learning algorithms that can adapt and improve over time based on user feedback.
Cognitive search also offers tantalizing possibilities for your business.
Imagine a modern data platform with all of your most important enterprise data, one that can be securely accessed without disrupting production environments. Now imagine your employees running cognitive search queries against this data to inform decision-making. Instant answers to sophisticated questions and business problems become a reality.
Let’s consider a demonstration of what Cohesity and cognitive search could look like in the future.
Have a conversation with your data
Imagine you’re a new lawyer at an established law firm, litigating a case in the construction industry and a collection of sub-contractors. A senior partner at the firm mentions to you that the current case sounds vaguely similar to a case from 15 years ago.
What are your options? Dig through paper archives manually, or use Cohesity and AI to find insights much faster.
Watch the video below to see a demonstration of this hypothetical use case.
With your enterprise data set in a modern data platform, accessible via cognitive search, breakthrough insights become possible.
Cohesity Data Cloud: The foundation of your AI strategy you didn’t know you had
Modern data platforms power the 12 factor apps that run our digital world. Business and IT teams increasingly depend on modern data platforms for cyber resilience, protection against ransomware, and other backup and recovery use cases.
If you’re a Cohesity customer, you already have a modern data platform. In fact, you have already invested in a foundational part of your AI strategy by choosing Cohesity. We look forward to supporting you on your AI journey in the months and years ahead.
This blog is part of our “Road to Catalyst” series. Check back every week for new data security and AI content, and register today to join us at Cohesity Catalyst, our data security and management virtual summit.
