You Won't Believe Where You'd Find Big Data at the Soccer World Cup

The vast range of possibilities and outcomes in sport makes it fertile ground for number crunchers. Analysts use sophisticated algorithms to factor in everything from temperature and humidity to the materials used in the manufacturing of tournament equipment in order to predict results.

Many of these factors are prone to volatility over the course of a sporting event, making real time analysis even more challenging. A case in point is the Goldman Sachs model built on regression analysis of all team results leading up to the tournament that had to be updated mid-tournament. They predict a 2-1 victory for Brazil over the Dutch in the finals (which of course we now know is impossible after Brazil's stunning defeat against Germany in the semi-finals).

More than a Crystal Ball

Employing Big Data technologies to correlate complex and dynamic data streams to predict sporting outcomes is becoming commonplace. However, the use cases for Big Data don't stop there.

Big Data is at work everywhere at the World Cup with use cases that range from optimizing public transportation, improving social media orchestration, lowering lighting bills, and reducing traffic congestion, to smart parking, better waste management, and crowd control. Each day of the tournament, millions of sensors stream massive amounts of information that needs to be processed, analyzed and stored.

Across the globe, more and more city planners, event organizers and government agencies are investing in Big Data to streamline, secure and enrich the lives of their constituents. In the corporate world, retailers, cell phone providers, and manufacturing firms are busy retrofitting older equipment with sensors, and are looking for ways to instrument new equipment so they can understand their customers better and run their businesses more efficiently.

Operational Analytics Made Easy with Splunk and Red Hat 

The growth of machine data has given rise to an entire field of Big Data analytics known as operations or operational analytics. The goal is to correlate diverse streams of machine data to provide timely, actionable insights to the end user.

Splunk is a market leader in the space and a strategic partner with Red Hat around our storage products. As the volumes of sensor data grow, enterprises and government agencies look to agile, affordable storage platforms to manage the cost and complexity of machine data. Learn how machine data is changing the business landscape and how Splunk & Red Hat can help you build a world class platform for operational analytics.

Please join us for a free webinar on July 16^th at 2pm EST to speak with Red Hat and Splunk experts on how you can get started monetizing machine data today. Register here.