Big data: A requirements engineering perspective

Abstract

Summary form only given. Big data promises to lead to better decisions, which can bring greater operational efficiency, productivity, reduced cost and risk, and the like to a variety of domains. But is the use of big data always going to be beneficial, and if so how? In answering this question, I will first survey research in big data from a requirements engineerin g perspective. Afterwards, I will describe a goal-oriented approach - which adopts but goes beyond an object-oriented approach, to beneficially using big data. This approach is intended to rationally "connect the dots", from stakeholders' problems and needs, business key performance indices, important insights through analytics for both AS-IS and TO-BE, machine learning techniques, SQL/NoSQL database queries, etc. I will talk about how this approach can aid business decision making in general and more specifically in business process reengineering, possibly with a tool support. At the end, I will outline some of the software engineering challenges in more beneficially using big data.