As anyone running modern data applications in the cloud knows, costs can mushroom out of control very quickly and easily. Getting these costs under control is really all about not spending more than you have to. Unfortunately, the common approach to managing these expenses—which looks at things only at an aggregated infrastructure level—helps control only about 5% of your cloud spend.

The 2021 holiday season is over, and, with a bump we’ve landed in 2022, with something of a repetitive tune playing. The COVID pandemic continues; we are a full two years post the first cases being reported; and the statistics are no less shocking today than they were at the outset.

When companies realized data was a resource and not just the by-product of sales, they began to offer customers additional value: free products, savings, money back, even a club-like exclusivity. They often did it, and still do it, with customer loyalty programs, which were frequently expressed in the form of a physical card, such as Starbucks Rewards and MyPanera. But the very biggest companies have changed the loyalty game.

I have written many a post about the importance of keeping your data moving. As Mathew Wilder sang in “Break My Stride,” it’s “got to keep on moving” to enable you to act within the business moment. Real-time data analytic pipelines are the solid foundation to achieving the state of Active Intelligence, and you can only start that when you work on the freshest data available to you.

Bayer Crop Science uses Google Cloud to analyze billions of acres of land to better understand the characteristics of the soil that produces our food crops. Bayer’s teams of data scientists are leveraging services from across Google Cloud to load, store, analyze, and visualize geospatial data to develop unique business insights. And because much of this important work is done using publicly-available data, you can too!

With hundreds of SaaS products in a given company, it’s getting more and more challenging and time-consuming to manage supplier relationships and negotiate contracts. Vendr has completely transformed this entire process by creating a SaaS buying platform where stakeholders can easily handle the relationships and contracts of their different software suppliers in a centralized platform.

In an increasingly globalized world, businesses are exposed to risks more than ever before. With shrinking profit margins and increased competition, organizations need to be on their toes all the time to survive. That's where the importance of data comes in. The jury might still be out on whether data is the new oil. But the growing market of data analytics outsourcing tells you that more and more companies are investing in data analytic solutions to gain a competitive edge.

If you’ve ever been on a long road trip, then you know the feeling of relief that comes when finally spy a recognizable truck stop or service station to pull into. Whether to fill up the tank, grab a snack, or ask for directions, fuel stations are a ubiquitous part of automotive travel, and there are more than 150,000 of them across the country. Pilot Flying J accounts for 750 of those locations, serving more than 1.3 million people daily.