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October 17, 2019

Op Analytics Tool Tracks Metrics in Real Time

Understanding in real time how and why key business metrics change has emerged as a key challenge for enterprises, fueling the growth of operational analytics as organizations scramble to find better ways to leverage internal, structured data to discern patterns within key performance indicators.

Among the latest operational analytics tools that seek to go beyond business intelligence tools and SQL querying is an AI-based diagnostic analytics platform from San Francisco-based startup Sisu Data. Launched last year, Sisu’s platform is based on research conducted by founder and CEO Peter Bailis at his Stanford University lab.

That work focused on building new interfaces to data, ranking algorithms and scaling the resulting systems to analyze metrics gleaned from structured data. Bailis then collaborated with Facebook, Google, Microsoft and others to develop and deploy prototype platforms.

“We realized both the fundamental need and the scarcity of tools available to diagnose metrics over extremely large and dynamic structured datasets,” Bailis noted in a blog post this week. “Most of today’s organizations already have enough data to diagnose change in their key metrics in real time; we believe every company that’s still around in 20 years will be doing so daily.”

The operational analytics startup has over the past year plowed more than $66 million in venture funding, including a $52 million Series B round announced this week, into its flagship platform. General availability of the diagnostic analytics tool was announced on Wednesday (Oct. 16). Sisu said the platform combines machine learning and statistical analysis to help customers track fluctuating business metrics in real time.

“Operational analytics is a wide-open space, with a unique set of product and computational challenges that demand a fundamentally new approach,” Bailis asserts, referring to current BI and query tools. The startup argues that current approaches can track business metrics at a given point in time, but lack the ability to explain how and why they move up or down. “It’s near impossible to tell quickly or with certainty why a metric is changing,” Bailis asserted.

Hence, the startup’s platform is designed to monitor key indicators for changes, then identify the factors behind those changes. Sisu touts its platform as a fast and comprehensive platform for analyzing structured data.

Among the features of the diagnostic tool is the ability to connect with enterprise data warehouses, including Amazon Redshift, Google BigQuery and Snowflake.

“When we talk about data, it’s all about insights—if information isn’t usable by end-users, if they can’t actually make decisions based on their data—then access to that data is meaningless,” Sisense CEO Amir Orad noted in response to the Sisu’s emergence from stealth mode.

“One thing remains abundantly clear: The market for companies that help enterprises understand and take action based on their data will only continue to grow,” added Orad

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