The ability to analyze and act on data is more important now than ever as digital business is rewriting the rules of competition. To stay ahead, it's more than the ability to react quickly. It's the ability to respond strategically, supported by data-driven decisions in the moment. Yet, as the world becomes more digital, so does the amount of connected devices creating data -in more places than ever before.

The challenge is how to pinpoint the business value within the massive amounts of machine-generated data in an organization's environment.

For those looking to sustain competitive advantage in the digital era, traditional approaches that require all data to be moved to a central repository for analysis will need to be supplemented with a distributed analytics model. A big reason for this is because much of the data coming off of connected devices (i.e. sensors) loses value minutes after it is collected. A distributed analytics approach filters, aggregates, and compresses data at the edge, in the fog, or in the data center as appropriate for an organization's needs.

This is exactly why Cisco designed Edge Analytics Fabric (EAF), an open architecture platform that captures, stores, and analyzes data where it is actively created. And we see it as a game-changing innovation for many industries.

Today, at Cisco Live in Las Vegas, I had the honor of co-presenting with Nigel Hook, CEO and Co-Founder of SilverHook Powerboats. SilverHook designs high speed racing watercrafts that reach speeds of up to 200 mph with each boat containing two engines worth approximately$1.5M USD.

Nigel knows a thing or two about competitive advantage. Nobody today has more experience or wins racing high-speed mono-hulls in the open ocean. Nigel's background in data and analytics has been a key differentiator in achieving peak performance in the racing world.

In fact, SilverHook is leveraging edge analytics to help race pilots react immediately to environment and multi variate engine conditions in real-time, indicating the need to throttle back in a split second, for example, to help prevent the boat's systems from failure and to perform optimally. Previously, without this instant insight into the critical data, the outcomes could spell disaster. I encourage you to check out Nigel and his team in the video below.

For Cisco and our customers, it's more than just accessing and analyzing data; it's about putting it into the exact context in the moment in order to act for your business. Whether you are optimizing machinery on a manufacturing floor or racing a speedboat 200 mph, the true value from data and analytics comes from acting on the insights found when connecting the unconnected.

Want to hear more? Don't forget to sign up for Cisco's Data & Analytics Conference, September 19-21 in Chicago, where you'll have the opportunity to hear directly from more customers like SilverHook.

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To stay on top of all Cisco Data & Analytics news and highlights, check out our blog: Analytics & Automation. Read the blogs of Mala Anand, Kevin Ott, Bob Eve and James Jamison.