Putting Big Data in its Place

Putting Big Data in its Place

One of the most compelling and most discussed aspects of the growing digital health movement is the potential for mining the Big Data — all easily accessed in large abundance. But is that a reasonable possibility? With dozens of devices on (or inside) millions of people, how much data will be produced? where will it be stored? who will have access to it? and who will be responsible for protecting it? and for how long? days? months? years? decades?

What happens when new devices appear, offering new forms of data, in ways never before expected? Will we be able to incorporate these new inputs into the already existing data infrastructure? What about devices with limited computing power, storage space, and battery life? Do we assume every device will have instant access to unlimited storage? at all times?

Data is just the start of our challenges. The bigger issues that need to be dealt with today revolve around transfer, storage, access, and lifecycle management of the actions these devices record. Data is just a byproduct - the historical remnants of the places we go and the things we do. Actions are the gold and we’re missing the opportunity to dig them up. We need to wake up and put data in it’s proper place in the grand scheme of the coming age of digital health.

Director of API Architecture, API Academy, CA Technologies

An internationally known author and lecturer, Mike Amundsen travels throughout the world consulting and speaking on a wide range of topics including distributed network architecture, Web application development, and other subjects.

In his role of Director of Architecture for the API Academy, Amundsen heads up the API Architecture and Design Practice in North America. He is responsible for working with companies to provide insight on how best to capitalize on the myriad opportunities APIs present to both consumers and the enterprise.

Amundsen has authored numerous books and papers on programming over the last 15 years. His most recent book is a collaboration with Leonard Richardson titled "RESTful Web APIs" published in 2013. His 2011 book, “Building Hypermedia APIs with HTML5 and Node”, is an oft-cited reference on building adaptable Web applications.