GE Announces First Data Lake Approach for Industrial Internet to Better Access, Analyze and Store Industrial-Strength Big Data

In collaboration with Pivotal, breakthrough data architecture drives unprecedented efficiency and cost savings for airlines, railroads, hospitals and utilities

  • Aviation pilot project integrates terabytes of full flight data for the first time in industry -- demonstrating 2,000x performance improvement and up to 10x cost savings
  • Combines with GE PredixTM for faster, more secure access and analysis of industrial data for customers
  • Builds on technology partnership announced in 2013

SAN RAMON, Calif.--()--GE (NYSE:GE) announced today that it has created, in collaboration with Pivotal, the first-ever industrial data lake approach to help global industrial customers like airlines, railroads, hospitals and utilities better access, analyze and store terabytes or even petabytes of industrial-strength Big Data, which is far more complex than other types of new and emerging content and information available today. With a 2,000x performance improvement on time to analysis, major industrial companies can spend less time and money managing intensive processes and focus more on turning the data into actionable insight for increased productivity of assets and operations. Today GE is using the Industrial Internet data lake for managing and analyzing full flight data from its customers which include many of the world’s largest airlines.

“Big Data is growing so fast that it is outpacing the ability of current tools to take full advantage of it,” said Bill Ruh, vice president, GE Software. “Working with Pivotal, we have created a unique industrial data approach that merges information technology (IT) with operational technology (OT) to better match the productivity and efficiency needs of our customers so they get the most value out of their mission-critical information.”

“Big and fast data is a critical piece of how modern industry is reinventing itself in order to innovate and compete,” said Paul Maritz, CEO of Pivotal. “The new industrial data lake architecture answers the call for the fast and highly scalable management of the unique industrial big data that is helping global enterprises transform their operations and build a new class of applications.”

Developed on foundational software elements from Pivotal, the industrial data lake will integrate with PredixTM, GE's software platform for the Industrial Internet that provides a standard and secure way to connect machines, analytics, data and people and is built for the unique scale of industrial data. This announcement builds on the strategic partnership between GE and Pivotal to jointly develop a new data architecture that meets the unique requirements of industrial data and critical infrastructure operations.

All information must be converted into recognizable formats before it can be used - a process that has become the bottleneck when managing industrial Big Data. Conventional approaches like data warehouses can be too slow, expensive and inflexible with nearly 80 percent of project time spent on gathering and preparing the data for analysis. [source: IDC whitepaper]

All of GE’s PredictivityTM software solutions benefit from this industrial data lake approach. It has been piloted in various industrial settings, including GE Aviation, where airplane engines are a fertile ground for Big Data collection and analysis. Using its Flight Efficiency Services, GE collects real-time data generated by the aircraft and its systems and runs advanced analytics on this data to help airlines run their operations more efficiently. For customers like AirAsia, this means savings of more than one percent of their fuel bill each year.

“Gathering and analyzing data to improve our customers’ operations is no longer a futuristic concept, but a real process underway today, and growing in magnitude,” said David Joyce, president & CEO, GE Aviation.

In a 2013 pilot, GE Aviation collected information on 15,000 flights from 25 different airlines at about 14 gigabytes of metrics per flight. With the industrial data lake approach, GE was able to integrate terabytes of full flight data for the first time in industry to produce measurable cost savings of 10x and significantly reduce analysis time from months to days. GE expects the data collection to grow to 10 million flights and 1,500 terabytes of full flight operational data by 2015.

Learn more about GE’s industrial data lake at http://www.gesoftware.com/industrial-data-lake.

About GE

GE (NYSE:GE) works on things that matter. The best people and the best technologies taking on the toughest challenges. Finding solutions in energy, health and home, transportation and finance. Building, powering, moving and helping to cure the world. Not just imagining. Doing. GE works. For more information, visit the company's website at www.ge.com.

About GE Software

GE Software connects brilliant machines with best-in-class minds and big data analytics to deliver on our vision for the Industrial Internet. Powered by GE’s Predix platform, our Predictivity software solutions unlock valuable insights and increased productivity through asset performance management for customers across diverse industries including aviation, rail, energy and healthcare. For more, visit GE Software's website at www.gesoftware.com.

About Pivotal

Pivotal, the company at the intersection of big data, platform-as-service (PaaS), and agile development, helps companies transform into great software companies. Pivotal offers a complete portfolio of products that converge apps, data and analytics along with Pivotal’s comprehensive PaaS platform, powered by Cloud Foundry®.

©2014 Pivotal Software, Inc. is a registered trademark of Pivotal Software, Inc. in the United States and/or other Countries.

Contacts

Media:
GE:
Holly Gilthorpe, 925-242-6896
Gilthorpe@ge.com
or
Leigh Farris, 646-682-5603
leigh.farris@ge.com
or
Pivotal:
David Oro, 415-885-9898
doro@gopivotal.com

Contacts

Media:
GE:
Holly Gilthorpe, 925-242-6896
Gilthorpe@ge.com
or
Leigh Farris, 646-682-5603
leigh.farris@ge.com
or
Pivotal:
David Oro, 415-885-9898
doro@gopivotal.com