<span;>Journey: Data,final frontier to AI, next frontier
<span;>-Inspired by Star Trek, paying homage to captain Kirk and Spock
<span;>40 years ago –
<span;>Remember Star Terk. During that time there was only one national TV channel Doordarshan which used to broadcast Star Trek on every Sunday morning and I used to sit there and did not miss any episode. Some one of you may still remember the nostalgic sound played by Doordarshan during the opening of broadcast for the day. How does Doordarshan and Star Trek relate to Data and AI? I will come to that soon.
<span;>30 years ago –
<span;>Remember Foxpro. FoxPro was a programming language and database management system (DBMS) that was originally developed by Fox Software and later sold to Microsoft. It combined a graphical user interface with the Database Engine and software-development tools. It was easy and fun. I was a college student at that time mesmerized by the potential of DBMS, did a final semester project in Foxpro. While my other friends, who were more intellectual than me, did their project in C++, I was beaming with hope about DBMS.
<span;>20 yeas ago –
<span;>Remember Oracle & SQL, Java & JDBC.
<span;>Yes, those were the days of 3 tier architecture, with Database layer at the bottom, Application layer at the middle, and UI layer at the top. We used to write Java servlet interface at the UI layer, with JDBC connector at the Application layer talking to Database layer.
<span;>Java Servlet is a Java software component that extends the capabilities of a server. Although servlets can respond to many types of requests, they most commonly implement web containers for hosting web applications on web servers and thus qualify as a server-side servlet web API. Such web servlets are the Java counterpart to other dynamic web content technologies.
<span;>JDBC connectors allow data to be transferred between relational databases and other systems. But the problem is that the data remained in silo as there were several systems in an organization landscape, some written in Java, some in PHP, and some in ASP.NET
<span;>10 years ago –
<span;>Remember MDM (Master Data Management). Master Data management is the buzz, all major software players had their share of fortune. SAP came up with SAP MDG (Master Data Governance), Microsoft came up with their MDM, Oracle came up with their version of MDM and Informatica with their’s. These were all great solutions and application suites for Master data management in their own terms. Each had their strengths and weaknesses when played in their own ecosystem. But data still remained in silo in each of the ecosystem within an organization landscape.
<span;>At present and future –
<span;>Do not remember any thing. You don’t have to because here comes the age of AI. As Samsung says AI is here. The buzz, the craze, the future, it’s Artificial Intelligence. And now happens the marriage between Data & AI. There is Data Warehouse, Data Lake, Data Mesh and Data Fabric. I will not go deep into these solutions, as you can always use Google and Bing, rather Gemini and Copilot to search and read every thing about the above. These are wonderful architectures and solutions from AWS, Azure, GCP or SAP BTP over the private or public cloud for data management. These are complex architectures and cutting edge technologies, but with online helps and AI tools you can always thrive to be an expert.
<span;>But the question is does data still remains in silo with in an ecosystem. Unfortunately yes. Because you can still use Microsoft Purview, Informatica MDM, or SAP MDG or all in an organization landscape. Even you can use multiple vendor cloud solutions from AWS, GCP and Azure in the same landscape. So how many technologies like you learn, how many cloud solutions will you master, how many certifications will you complete to marry Data with AI. You may think AI will do it all, why bother. But the quote “There is no such thing as a free lunch” still holds good.
<span;>If we consider wildly that Captain Kirk is Data and Captain Spock is AI, then to find Kirk/Spock, commonly abbreviated as K/S or Spirk, and achive Data/AI, commonly termed as Data & AI, we have to go a long way. May be in future there will be no meaning for the intent of this write up, as D/A will rule the world, but my/our journey from Data, the final frontier to AI, the next frontier will always be relevant.
<span;>Kousik Mukherjee