Working with a large volume & variety of data

John Keells Holdings PLC, being one of Sri Lanka’s largest listed companies in the Colombo Stock Exchange , accumulates a high volume of data every day in varied formats from the seven industry verticals it operates in: Financial Services, Retail, Leisure, Consumer Food and Beverages, Transportation, Property Development, and IT & Plantations. This data usually comes in unstructured, semi-structured, or structured formats. OCTAVE draws insight from this high volume and variety information asset to provide Advanced Analytics Solutions for business organizations.

How has the scope of OCTAVE expanded in the last year?

Over the past year, besides the high volume and variety of data, OCTAVE has ventured into gathering high velocity data as well. We used to only work with batch processing systems, where we processed data at specific times. We have now incorporated the ability to process near real-time data and are able to make data available faster for our Advanced Analytics solutions.

How has access to a large volume and variety of data affected your journey at OCTAVE? 

Data Engineers can get an in-depth holistic understanding of any business they work with. Now, as a customer, if I walk into a shop, I have an idea of how data is used to determine what product will be on the shelves, and when and where it will be placed. In terms of personal growth, I can ‘get inside’ most domains and learn how they function. 

What would like to share with those interested in becoming a Data Engineer at OCTAVE?

At the moment, John Keells Holdings Group is the only entity with access to data with such high volume, variety, and velocity. As a Data Engineer at OCTAVE, you will not be boxed into one type of data, but get to work with various formats. Most companies in the data field use only one method to process data, or one tool, or one type of data, or one domain, but OCTAVE gives you the chance to gain experience in different aspects. Most vacancies available in the data space to a recent graduate is in database management, but OCTAVE offers real ‘engineering’ experience. 

Written by: Chandima Senarath Samarasinghe, Data Engineer