Articles

Data Science with Python

KD Nuggets Data Science/ Machine Learning PollFor those of you who might have missed it, the website KDnuggets released their latest internet survey on data science tools, and Python came out ahead, again. Python has continued to gain as a tool that people are using for Data Science.  The article accompanying the graphic is very interesting as it brings up two data related points. The first is the survey only had “over 2300 votes” and “…one vendor – RapidMiner – had a very active campaign to vote in KDnuggets poll”.  This points the fallacy in completely relying on data with an insufficiently sized data set, as it is possible to skew the results, which is true both for surveys and data science projects.  If you look at the remaining results one thing also strikes me as interesting. Anaconda and sci-kit learn are Python libraries.  Tensorflow could be used for either R or Python.  This does tend to increase the argument for more use of R or Python over RapidMiner.  The survey also made me want to check out RapidMiner.

Thoughts around Rapid Miner for Machine Learning

While I have not had enough time to fully analyze Rapid Miner, I thought I would give my initial analysis here and do a more detailed review of it in another post.  Rapid Miner scored well in the Kaggle Survey, but also it ranked highly on the 2018 Garner Magic Quadrant for Data Science Platforms.  Rapid Miner is trying to be a tool not only for data scientists, but also for business analysts as well.  The UI is pretty intuitive, which is good because the help is not what it should be. I also was less than impressed at its data visualization capabilities, as R and Python both provide much better visuals. Of course, I used the free version of the software, which works but it is limiting.  It looks like a lot of the new stuff is going to be only available on the paid version, which decreases my desire to really learn this tool.

Machine Learning Tools

Recently I have done a number of talks on Python in SQL Server, literally all around the world, including Brisbane, Australia tomorrow and Saturday, June 2 as well as in Christchurch New Zealand. As R was written in New Zealand, I thought that it would be the last place where people would be looking to use Python with Data Science, but several of the attendees of my precon on Machine Learning for SQL Server told me that where they worked, Python was being used to solve data science problems. Now of course this is anecdotal sample, as we are not talking about a statistically significant sample set, but that doesn’t keep it from being interesting.   The demand for Python training continues to increase as Microsoft has announced they are working on incorporating Machine Learning Service blog series with SQL Server Central.  The first two post have been released. Let me know what you think of them.

Upcoming Events

I am looking forward to talking about Machine Learning with SQL Server in Brisbane both at an intense day long session and at a one hour session on Implementing Python in SQL Server 2017 at SQL Saturday #713 – Brisbane, Australia. I look forward to seeing you there. For those who can’t make it, well, hopefully our paths will cross at a future event.

 

Yours Always,

Ginger Grant

Data aficionado et SQL Raconteur

Limitations in Time Series Data Analysis and the growth of Advanced Data Analytics

As someone who regularly analyzes data, I have done my share of time series analysis to determine trends over time.  I am struck by the fallibility of this sort of analysis.  For those who are unfamiliar with this time of analysis, time series analysis is performed to try to identify patters in the noise of data to help predict future trends through the use of algorithms like ARIMA. As I kid I remember hearing in fast announcer voice the following text “Past performance is no indication of future results”.  As a matter of fact this is a rule that the SEC requires mutual funds to tell all of their investors this statement.  Yet I get asked to do it anyway.  While I enjoy working with data and using advance analysis techniques including R and Python, I think it is important to realize the limitations of this sort of analysis.  It is considered a good experiment in Machine Learning if you are 85% right.  This is not acceptable if you are talking about a self-driving car as running people over 15% of the time is generally not considered acceptable. There are times when looking at the future that the data is not always going to provide an answer.  When looking to find answers in data, that needs to be something people keep in mind.  While you can find some answers in data, other answers will require prognostication or plan old guessing.

Impact on Technology realized in 2026

http://michaeljswart.com/2016/06/t-sql-tuesday-079-its-2016/comment-page-1/#comment-186750Data analysis is all about pattern matching, and while I don’t find it to be infallible, looking at a wideset of data has led me to plan accordingly.  While I am no Faith Popcorn, my analysis of what I see in the marketplace has led me to make some changes in my own life as I believe change is coming to the industry.  Adam Mechanic’s prompting for looking ahead to 2016 has provided the impetus to publish these theories.  What I see in the marketplace is the tools which are used to support databases are improving.  I see the ability of software to provide relevant hints and automate tuning of database queries and performance to continually improve, meaning there will be less of a need to employ people to perform this task.  I see with databases being pushed more and more to the cloud and managed services less and less need to employ many people to perform dba roles. Where I see the industry moving is towards more people being employed in analyzing the data to determine meaning from it.  I see that in 2026 very little data analysis being performed with R and most analysis being performed in Python.  This means that if you are looking ahead, and are employed in areas where people are being supplemented with tools, the time is now to learn skills in areas where there is growth. If you have been thinking about learning data science, Python and advanced analytics tools now is the time to start so that you will be prepared for the future.

 

Yours Always,

Ginger Grant

Data aficionado et SQL Raconteur

Applying Data Science to SQL Server

Data has been getting a lot of attention in the business world for a while now. First there was big data, which was another way to store data so that later the data could be analyzed. Recently the talk has been all about analyzing the data with new tools such as R and Python. The reality is that people who have been working with databases doing work in business intelligence have been analyzing data for a while. Learning a different toolset for analyzing data is not such a big leap, but an expansion of what they know.

As the field is rapidly expanding now, and demand is huge, now is a great time to learn the tools. With the advent of more advanced software, it seems essential to create fast and reliable processing mechanisms. In addition, concepts such as Web3 seem to be developing and becoming realities at an accelerated rate. Data plays an essential role in the development of such marvels of information technology. It is high time companies consider combining traditional data science tools, like MATLAB, Apache Spark, and SQL, with modern tools, like web3 sql. This could help them organize and process the data at relative speeds while reducing data analytics costs.

Traditional Data Science Development

Data scientist have created analysis solutions with data for a number of years. The data is analyzed, cleaned, processed with various algorithms, and results are created. When the process is complete, code has been created to provide meaning from a portion of the data and is ready to be migrated to production. Traditionally there has been a big gap between creating a solution and implementing the solution to be run against data on a regular basis. Data Scientists traditionally are not part of the IT organization, they are actuaries or analysts, not the people who have anything to do with system processing. Recently I did some work for a company and after the data scientists were done creating a solution, they turned over all of their code to the Java team. Six weeks later the code was released into production. This solution made no one happy. Management thought it took too long. The data scientist didn’t believe that the code that they created was what was implemented into production, and the java developers were tired of people blaming them for wrong code which required a long time to implement.

SQL Server Implementation of Data Science

Since SQL Server 2016 incorporates R and SQL Server 2017 has added the ability to include Python code into SQL Server, data science solutions can be incorporated as part of a scheduled process with SQL Server. There is now a dev ops solution for incorporating R and Python into SQL Server. One way of learning about the technology is through blogs and other online training which can help you get up to speed. Many times though there is no substitute for hands on learning. If you are attending PASS Summit 2017, and want to learn not only about data science, but how to incorporate it into SQL Server, I hope you can sign up for my all day training session on Applied Data Science for the SQL Server Professional. I hope to see you there.

I have recently created a You Tube channel where I plan on sharing more data related content where I have included my first video about this conference.

If you are at PASS Summit, please introduce yourself as I would love to meet people who read my blog personally.

 

Yours Always

Ginger Grant

Data aficionado et SQL Raconteur