by Angela Guess
Mijee Briana Walker of IBM recently wrote in InformationWeek, “In the cognitive era, organizations are using technology to process data more quickly than ever and correlate results that could be difficult to imagine in the past. These capabilities are crucial for resiliency. Cognitive computing is changing how industries do business by providing access to data that enables critical decision-making, reduces time frames for key business deliverables, and ensures products get to market efficiently and effectively.”
Walker continues, “If cognitive systems and the data they use were to become unavailable for days, weeks, or longer, the impact could be massive. For instance, in the legal industry, court dates could be pushed out for months because lawyers would have to do research manually. In the healthcare industry, time to market for critical medications could be significantly delayed, affecting people’s lives. In the shipping industry, products could be delayed getting to stores if the sensor data that alerts companies of upcoming maintenance issues cannot be relied upon or if the cognitive applications that process this data are unavailable.”
She goes on, “The cognitive era is pushing companies across all industries toward even lower recovery-time objectives (the time organizations can work without IT) and recovery point objectives (the amount of data that can be lost). In many cases, continuous availability is becoming vitally important. Recovery from tape is not realistic when organizations are working with real-time data transmissions and actively making business decisions based on the computations from key cognitive applications.”
Photo credit: Flickr/ stallio