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This is the last post of my series about the topics I care most about. This time, I will focus on Analytics and AI. Especially the last topic (AI) has been a major buzz-word this year, so it is interesting to see what might happen in 2019. Therefore, my predictions for 2019 are:

1. Governance will be seen as major enabler – or blocker – for self-service analytics. Self-service Analytics will become a key goal for most companies

Let’s stay on the ground: a “deal-breaker” for Advanced Analytics and Data Science is often the inability to access data (fast) or bad data quality. Both topics can be handled well if data governance is treated with major investments within enterprises. I often see data scientists waiting for days or weeks to access data. Once they have access to data, they only figure out that the quality is very bad. Let’s face it: data governance wasn’t important in enterprises nor attractive. Nobody I know was stating that he applied a great data governance strategy. Other topics are more interesting to talk about. Nevertheless, if an enterprise continues to treat data governance as done till now, it will block data science from being successful. A lot of consulting companies currently market the term “self-service analytics” – but this is simply not achievable without data governance in place. Next year, more and more companies will figure this out and either apply a data governance strategy or risk to fail with their data driven efforts.

2. AI will continue to be a buzz-word, creating even more confusion in 2019 than it did before

I don’t know how you felt about AI the past year, but I had some really great “aha” moments. A lot of vendors approached me and wanted to talk about their great AI solutions. When I started to ask questions, the answer from (sales staff) was – “don’t worry, our AI takes care of it”. When looking under the hood of the technologies, it was often just a simple rules engine – no smart AI! I started to call this “rules based AI”, as there was no magic involved. When asking some vendors how they would explain AI, they simply said: “don’t worry, only the smartest people understand it”. I found this to be sort of offensive as they considered themselves as not smart enough – and even me :). I even asked if their AI is already rules based, and they said yes. So, one thing is very clear: AI is a buzz-word. Everyone is talking about it, but hardly anyone understands it. Same story as with the cloud, just some years ago. This trend will continue and finding real AI solutions (no, I won’t mention which I would consider as real – no ad placement in here) will be tricky. Many companies will buy “AI” solutions as it is trendy and they want to be part of it or simply don’t want to loose in this growing market. However, many of them will figure out that their AI isn’t as smart as they would have hoped for.

3. Google will use it’s advantage in AI to catch up in the Cloud

This basically reflects what I already wrote in the post some days ago in the Cloud. When it comes to the cloud, the #3 in the market is definitely Google. They entered the market somewhat later than AWS or Microsoft did. However, they offer a very interesting portfolio and competitive pricing. A key strength Google has is their AI and Analytics services, as the company itself is very data driven. Google really knows how to handle and analyse data much more than the two others do, so it is very likely that Google will use this advantage to gain shares from their competitors. I am exited about next Google I/O and what will be shown there in terms of Analytics and AI. 

4. Voice is the new Bacon

One of the many things AI should solve is voice recognition. It is one of the strength of mankind and one key development factor for us becoming what we are. With AI, we already see significant advances in intend recognition for written text (e.g. Chat, E-Mail, …). We carried out a project recently and could classify intent in e-mails with very little effort. However, voice is still an issue – especially if you are operating in a market with 4-6 million native speakers only. In order to go for significant automation of customer care, it is inevitable to go for voice recognition. But will it work? Ask yourself. Do you have Alexa or Google Home at your flat? Yes? I think we can answer this immediately. It only works poorly and is somewhat of an issue. However, next year, we will see significant improvements in this space, mainly driven by business demand. When we look at what Google presented during Google IO, this is the way to go. I believe that this year we will see much more of these services. Expect a lot to come in 2019 around Voice.

5. Rise of the python

Python is already the most popular language when it comes to data science. However, other languages like R are still in this space. Now, since many new data scientists come fresh from the universities with an IT background / major, python will continue to grow. This will also be reflected in new packages and add-ons for Python. Other languages won’t see so much effort and new and exciting tools will be available for Python only. Python still lacks capabilities for data visualisation when compared to R, but also this will change during 2019 and Python will continue to grow for this as well.

So, this are my 5 predictions for Data Science and AI. What do you think? Where do you agree or disagree? I am looking forward to our discussion!

In this blog post I will explain how you can add your own domain to a Google AppEngine Application. I will start from scratch just to show you how it works.
1. First of all, make sure you are signed in into Google AppEngine. Navigate to the Dashboard and create a new Application:

Google AppEngine Dashboard with Applications

Google AppEngine Dashboard with Applications


2. Create a new application by clicking on “Create Application”. On the next dialog, you need to specify some data about the application. This is the application identifier, a description and how the application will be accessed. We’ll select the “open for all” option, as we want our application to be generally available. Once this step is completed, you will see the “application created” page.
Create a new Application on Google AppEngine

Create a new Application on Google AppEngine


3. Next, we will navigate to the overview again and select our newly created application. Navigate down until you reach the section “Administration”. Select “Application Settings”.
Google AppEngine Settings

Google AppEngine Settings


4. In the “Application Settings” Dialog for Google AppEngine, scroll down until you reach the section “Domain Setup”. Click on “Add Domain”.  You are now redirected to a page where you can configure your domain.
Google AppEngine Domain Setup

Google AppEngine Domain Setup


5. To use Google AppEngine with your domain, you need to setup a Google Apps Account. Google Apps Standard is free and that is basically what I am also using. If you already have your Google Apps Account, you can skip the next steps until step 10. Click next on the first dialogs until you reach the domain verification page. On this page, select your domain host and authentify against it.
Google AppEngine Add Domain Name

Google AppEngine Add Domain Name


Google create new Google Apps Account

Google create new Google Apps Account


 
6. You might be asked about your domain registrar. Most of the time, it simply says “take me to …” for your domain registrar but it might also ask you for your registrar’s name in case you couldn’t be identified.
Google Apps select the domain registrar

Google Apps select the domain registrar


7. Log in to your domain registrar.
Google Apps log in to GoDaddy

Google Apps log in to GoDaddy


8. Authorise Google Apps to identify with your registrar
Verify Google Apps to change to Godaddy

Verify Google Apps to change to Godaddy


9. The domain verification and associated update of domain settings might take a while (up to 48hrs). However, you can now go back to the Dialog where it says “add Domain”.
Google AppEngine add the Google Apps Domain

Google AppEngine add the Google Apps Domain


10. Enter the domain name in the text box and click “Add”. You are now redirected to Google Apps, where your permission is required to use this domain. Simply click on “Agree” on the Terms.
11. Now you are on the page with the domain administration. Click on “add new URL”
Google AppEngine add the top-level domain with "www"

Google AppEngine add the top-level domain with “www”


12. Normally, you can only add some subdomains. However, this might not be that smart all time so I would recommend adding something like a top-level domain for it.  You can do this by adding “www” on the dialog.
13. Now you have to do some manual steps with your domain registrar – e.g. Godaddy. Google explains what you have to do so simply follow these steps.
14. You are ready to host your AppEngine Application on your domain now! Have fun!
 
 

Still can’t get enough information about Cloud Computing? Here is the weekend reading list for interesting Topics about Cloud Computing. Have a nice (and cloudy) weekend 🙂
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  • Google search to include your private Gmail soon? – In this Blog by Computerworld the possibility of Google to include Gmail Data into search is discussed. There is some interesting Feedback by some authors. Read more here.
  • Only 16% of people know what the Cloud is. Do you agree? Is Cloud Computing not well known enough? Most believed it was about drugs, pillows, the weather, or toilet paper. Read more on Forbes about it.
  • 5 considerations when moving to the cloud. IBM explains what we have to consider when moving to the cloud. The 5 Tips are Monitoring, Security, Performance, Vendor-Lockin and Migration. Read more about it here.
  • Amazon Web Services boss Andy Jassy on competition, price wars, and getting big. Read the interview with AWS boss Andy Jassy on his thoughts about Cloud Computing and what is going on right now in this sector. The interview can be found here.
  • The Role of Open Source in Cloud Computing Innovation. Interesting article about the role of Open Source for Cloud Computing. The article can be read here.

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