Top Trends that Will Redefine Data & Analytics in 2024

In 2024, data trends include modern platforms, cloud migration, Gen AI, data governance, multi-cloud management, advanced virtualization, and intelligent applications. Orion Innovation, a digital transformation company, guides businesses in leveraging these trends for strategic transformation and customer success amid the evolving data landscape.

In 2024, the spotlight remains on data and analytics, as enterprises gear up for the challenges of navigating even larger datasets. Technological advancements, such as Generative AI (Gen AI), are reshaping the landscape, offering broader and deeper insights. Explore what lies ahead in the data-rich terrain of the coming year and how it translates into opportunities for your business.

1. Modern Data Platforms

A Modern Data Platform is a complete solution for the processing, analyzing, and presentation of data, built as a cloud-first, cloud-native data platform. It allows for data democratization, enabling just about everyone in an organization to access and leverage data. An indispensable toolkit for enterprises in 2024, it provides an end-to-end, scalable platform for data ingestion, data storage and processing, data transformation, business intelligence, and analytics. Orion Innovation’s history as a digital transformation company includes Modern Data Platform implementations that continuously evolve with the rapidly changing technical landscape.

2. Data Cloud Migrations

As businesses continue to modernize their data platforms, Data Cloud Migrations are increasingly in demand. This process involves moving data, applications, and workloads from an on-premise data warehouse to a cloud-based infrastructure, or from one cloud environment to another. Cloud data providers like Snowflake and Databricks can replace legacy data warehouses and provide high performance data processing engines. The result is a modern data platform that is unified, combining data integration, data quality, and data visualization in a seamless solution. There is greater flexibility in that you can integrate data from virtually any data source to any destination. Data processing costs are reduced, and the platform is easily scalable. 

3. High-Performance Data Processing in the Cloud 

Data processing and analytics in the cloud will continue to be a priority in 2024, with various data warehouse and data lake tools and frameworks available in the market. However, the two leading major rivals, Databricks and Snowflake, are competing head-to-head. Although they have a similar design, architecture, and support analytics, they aren’t quite the same. Snowflake replaces legacy data warehouses and supports ELT, while Databricks offers a high-performance data processing engine powered by Spark that is used with the data warehouse. Orion Innovation has partner relationships with both Databricks and Snowflake and has invested significantly in these products. 

4. Gen AI and AI/ML as Complimentary Technologies

Generative AI, AI, and Machine Learning (ML) will be even more integral to data and analytics systems in 2024. When combined, these technologies have the potential to enhance value creation for enterprises across various industries. For example, a business can utilize ML to predict and stay on top of critical failures, Business Intelligence (BI) to generate comprehensive reports, and Gen AI to generate fixes based on the failure probability. As these advanced capabilities seamlessly integrate into analytics, they will fundamentally reshape how businesses make informed decisions.

5. Data Governance for AI

Data Governance involves creating procedures to properly manage data, including Data Quality, Data Integration, and Master Data Management. With the increasing use of AI, Data Governance is becoming more crucial as it ensures that the data being leveraged is from trusted sources and is of good quality. Proper AI Governance processes can monitor and manage AI workflows across the entire lifecycle and can guarantee the usability, integrity, and security of enterprise data.  

6. Multi-Cloud Data Management  

In 2024, the multi-cloud approach is set to revolutionize data management. Distributing data management workloads across various cloud platforms allows organizations to choose customized solutions from different cloud providers. By seamlessly integrating multiple cloud platforms, companies can optimize costs and performance, accelerate processing speed, and improve overall resilience in data management operations.

7. Advanced Data Virtualization 

Data Virtualization enables the integration of data from multiple sources without the need to move or copy data. This allows users to quickly and easily access, combine, transform, and deliver the data they require. Advanced Data Virtualization will empower businesses to access data from various sources throughout the entire organization (traditional on-premise databases, cloud systems, big data sources, etc.) at a much lower cost, especially when compared to using an on-premise data warehouse with traditional ETL processes. Orion Innovation’s partnership with Denodo allows us to offer leading-edge Data Virtualization solutions to our clients.

8. Intelligent Applications

AI is making apps more intelligent, transforming the experiences for customers, users, product owners, architects, and developers. Intelligent applications simplify decision making by directly integrating insights from transactions and external sources into the applications. Examples include virtual assistants, chatbots, fraud detection systems, and personalized news and content aggregators. With a focus on predictions and recommendations rather than procedural features, AI creates a more personalized app experience, leading to improved outcomes and driving the evolution of data-driven decision-making.

9. The Rise of Data Lakes and Lakehouses

Data storage continues to evolve rapidly in the world of Modern Data Platforms. The classic data warehouse provided on-premise storage of structured data. Now, Data Lakes are becoming a popular tool in today’s cloud-based environment. Data Lakes address the need for Advanced Analytics and AI, providing access to both structured and unstructured data stored in a flexible, cost-effective manner. The demand for a hybrid solution resulted in the creation of the Lakehouse, which combines the architecture of a Data Lake with some of the features and tools of the traditional data warehouse. Orion Innovation’s partnership with Databricks ensures our continued commitment and investment in these solutions.

10. Democratization through Data Fabric and Data Mesh

As businesses strive for data democratization in 2024, there is a growing need for technologies to ensure that everyone can leverage data to make informed business decisions, regardless of technical skills. This includes Data Fabric, a system for automating data management tasks such as unifying and cleaning disparate sources and authorizing data access. This helps businesses make the most of existing data sources without the need for migration. An example is Microsoft Fabric, an all-in-one solution that allows for real-time analytics that can be easily accessed by just about anyone in an organization. Another democratization solution is Data Mesh, which involves a series of domains assigned to individual lines of business, enabling access to required data with maximum autonomy by upholding four key principles: Domain Ownership, Data as a Product, Self-Service Data Platform, and Federated Data Governance. Orion Innovation is a longstanding partner with Microsoft and works directly with them to provide these types of solutions.

Innovate with Data & Analytics in 2024

In 2023, a massive 120 zettabytes of data were generated globally. This growth, coupled with the integration of technologies like Generative AI, ML, and cloud, will reshape how businesses manage and derive insights from their data in the coming year. As businesses aim for richer insights, high-performance processing, and better data accessibility and quality, they have the opportunity to leverage various capabilities to meet evolving needs. Orion Innovation has been helping businesses transform their data into a strategic asset to drive enterprise transformation, efficiency, and customer success. We can help you navigate these evolving trends to drive value from your data in 2024 and beyond.

John Vizzotti

Global Practice Leader – Data & Analytics Services, Orion Innovation