Biztool: A flexible cloud-centric framework for business analytics

Abstract

Business analytics provide large enterprises an edge over their competitors, depending upon the size of the data analyzed and the time needed to generate business models. This requires an infrastructure model that meets these huge demands on large scale data processing. Cloud computing provides low cost storage space of virtually any size on demand which can host the data perpetually. Similarly, the processing power can also be commissioned as and when needed. Enterprises are constantly in search of simple and inexpensive systems which transform the available raw data to useful information. In this context, we propose a new framework named Biztool, where a collection of data analytic operators based on Gridbatch is provided as web services that process the data remotely. Biztool is flexible and customizable through user-defined functions. Since various clients can reuse the existing operators for their needs, the development and maintenance cost are reduced. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.