Data Science Tools Box

Data Science is the art of drawing and visualizing useful insights from data.
Basically, it is the process of collecting, analyzing, and modeling data to solve
problems related to the real-world. To implement the operations we have to use
such tools to manipulate the data and entities to solve the issues. With the help
of these tools, no need to use core programming languages in order to
implement Data Science. There are pre-defined functions, algorithms, and a
user-friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI). As we know that Data Science has
a very fast execution process, one tool is not enough to implement this.

1. Apache Hadoop

Apache Hadoop is a free, open-source framework by Apache Software

Foundation authorized under the Apache License 2.0 that can manage and
store tons and tons of data. It is used for high-level computations and data
processing. By using its parallel processing nature, we can work with the
number of clusters of nodes. It also facilitates solving highly complex
computational problems and tasks related to data-intensive.
Latest Version: Apache Hadoop 3.1.1
 Hadoop offers standard libraries and functions for the subsystems.
 Effectively scale large data on thousands of Hadoop clusters.
 It speeds up disk-powered performance by up to 10 times per project.
 Provides the functionalities of modules like Hadoop Common, Hadoop
YARN, Hadoop MapReduce.

2. SAS (Statistical Analysis System)

SAS is a statistical tool developed by SAS Institute. It is a closed source

proprietary software that is used by large organizations to analyze data. It
is one of the oldest tools developed for Data Science. It is used in areas
like Data Mining, Statistical Analysis, Business Intelligence Applications,
Clinical Trial Analysis, Econometrics & Time-Series Analysis.
Latest Version: SAS 9.4
 It is a suite of well-defined tools.
 It has a simple but most effective GUI.
 It provides a Granular analysis of textual content.
 Easy to learn and execute as there is a lot of available tutorials
with appropriate knowledge.
 Can make visually appealing reports with seamless and
dedicated technical support.

3. Apache Spark

Apache Spark is the data science tool developed by Apache Software

Foundation used for analyzing and working on large-scale data. It is a
unified analytics engine for large-scale data processing. It is specially
designed to handle batch processing and stream processing. It allows
 you to create a program to clusters of data for processing them along with
incorporating data parallelism and fault-tolerance. It inherits some of the
features of Hadoop like YARN, MapReduce, and HDFS.
Latest Version: Apache Spark 2.4.5
 It offers data cleansing, transformation, model building &
evaluation.
 It has the ability to work in-memory makes it extremely fast for
processing data and writing to disk.
 It provides many APIs that facilitate repeated access to data.

4. Data Robot

DataRobot Founded in 2012, is the leader in enterprise AI, that aids in

developing accurate predictive models for the real-world problems of any
organization. It facilitates the environment to automate the end-to-end
process of building, deploying, and maintaining your AI. DataRobot’s
Prediction Explanations help you understand the reasons behind your
machine learning model results.
 Highly Interpretable.
 It has the ability to making the model’s predictions easy to
explain to anyone.
 It provides the suitability to implement the whole Data Science
process at a large scale.

5. Tableau

Tableau is the most popular data visualization tool used in the market, is
an American interactive data visualization software company founded in
January 2003, was recently acquired by Salesforce. It provides the
facilities to break down raw, unformatted data into a processable and
understandable format. It has the ability to visualize geographical data
and for plotting longitudes and latitudes in maps.
Latest Version: Tableau 2020.2
 It offers comprehensive end-to-end analytics.
 It is a fully protected system that reduces security risks to the
maximum state.
 It provides a responsive user interface that fits all types of
devices and screen dimensions.

6. BigML

BigML, founded in 2011, is a Data Science tool that provides a fully

interactable, cloud-based GUI environment that you can use for
processing Complex Machine Learning Algorithms. The main goal of
using BigML is to make building and sharing datasets and models easier
for everyone. It provides an environment with just one framework for
reduced dependencies.
 Latest Version: BigML Winter 2020
 It specializes in predictive modeling.
 It has ability to export models via JSON PML and PMML makes
for a seamless transition from one platform to another.
 It provides an easy to use web-interface using Rest APIs.

7. TensorFlow

TensorFlow, developed by Google Brain team, is a free and open-source

software library for dataflow and differentiable programming across a
range of tasks. It provides an environment for building and training
models, deploying platforms such as computers, smartphones, and
servers, to achieving maximum potential with finite resources. It is one of
the very useful tools that is used in the fields of Artificial Intelligence,
Deep Learning, & Machine Learning.
Latest Version: TensorFlow 2.2.0
 It provides good performance and high computational abilities.
 Can run on both CPUs and GPUs.
 It provides features like easily trainable and responsive
construct.

8. Jupyter

Jupyter, developed by Project Jupyter on February 2015 open-source

software, open-standards, and services for interactive computing across
dozens of programming languages. It is a web-based application tool
running on the kernel, used for writing live code, visualizations, and
presentations. It is one of the best tools, used by scratch level
programmers & data science aspirants, by which they can easily learn
and adapt the functionalities related to the Data Science field.
Latest Version: Jupyter Notebook 6.0.3
 It provides an environment to perform data cleaning, statistical
computation, visualization and create predictive machine
learning models.
 It has the ability to display plots that are the output of running
code cells.
 It is quite extensible, supports many programming languages,
easily hosted on almost any server.

Turning Data into Actionable Knowledge

Data consists of the facts and statistics collected about people, places, things, business rules and
other factors of the business operations. It is also one of an organization’s most valuable assets. To
measure data quality and be able to turn it into actionable insights, it’s important to have processes
in place. It’s also important to perform regular data quality audits to ensure the data sets being
worked are accurate and up-to-date.
The five major ways you can turn data into actionable insights.
1. Verbalize Your Findings

To ensure your company is moving in the right direction, it’s important to communicate the insights
effectively to stakeholders and business leaders. Especially since there is access to so much data,
and not all the data you come across is helpful for the business, being able to identify critical data
sets allows your findings to be more targeted and focused.

Furthermore, accurately communicating what you have uncovered with data ensures everyone on
the team is on the same page and allows stakeholders to make data-driven decisions. Therefore,
when the appropriate parties are provided with accurate data, it facilitates them to take action that
power business strategy.

Here are some key factors to ensure your insights are communicated effectively:

 Know your audience

 Start with what’s most important
 Make it easy to understand
 Be able to answer ‘how’ and ‘why’

2. Understand What You Want to Measure

Moreover, knowing what you need to measure is key to turning data into actionable insights.
Otherwise, you may spend hours analyzing data that won’t be utilized or doesn’t align with the
business goals. Overall, data mature organizations have processes in place and spend time
reviewing results to drive business strategy.

Organizations that have a measurement plan in place are able to easily track business goals and key
performance indicators (KPIs) to ensure business goals are being met. This helps monitor the
business performance and ability to track progress to ensure success against business objectives –
playing a key role in actionable insights.

Every business is different and may have different metrics to measure, here a few key metrics
organizations often measure:

 Return on investment (ROI)

 Growth and churn rate
 Customer retention
 Cost per lead
 Customer lifetime value

3. Recognize Patterns

Analyzing your data will allow you to turn it into actionable insights as you begin to recognize and
create patterns. Patterns are beneficial as they can create opportunities that might not have been
there otherwise. Recognizing patterns helps you turn information into valuable knowledge and get
a better understanding of customer behavior.

Additionally, anomalies in the data serve as useful information to get clear insights of unusual
situations that require further investigation. Patterns highlight critical factors, facilitating
prioritization and making the business more efficient. It’s important to review all potential
implications of the discovered patterns to accurately move forward.

Mastering pattern recognition offers businesses to:

 See new opportunities

 Manage situations
 Find practical solutions

4. Build a Data-Driven Culture

A data-driven culture helps break down silos across teams and allows employees to collaborate and
share data from multiple functional areas. Additionally, staff don’t have to stop and ask for
permission to act. They are empowered to make decisions that are relevant to their role.
Organizations with a data-driven culture train and educate the staff with the required data-related
skills and knowledge.

Data mature organizations offer training to help employees enhance their data literacy skills. There
are different levels of data literacy and employees should have the appropriate level of data literacy
for their roles to power business strategy. Additionally, business leaders and data teams share a
common language and framework around data.

Organizations that use data well experience a number of benefits, including:

 Greater revenue from improved performance and outcomes

 Cost savings due to increase efficiency
 Greater competitive differentiation
 Improved products and services because there is a better understanding of the customers

5. Create a Central Source of Truth

A single source of truth is aggregating data from multiple sources into one and multiple teams have
easy access to it. This saves time as you don’t have to spend hours looking at unverified data. Data
mature organizations provide staff access to clean, high-quality data they need to perform their
daily work.

It’s important to have a central source of truth containing high-quality data for staff to easily access
and work with. However, processes must be in place to prevent and mitigate data-related ethical
and privacy concerns. There are a number of organizations that have multiple tools where data is
stored and it can lead to confusion and duplication.

Having a single source of truth allows business to have better:

  Organizational performance
 Data quality
 Data security

Deliver Critical Insights With Data Analysis

Effectively communicate your findings to stakeholders and ensure alignment with our
course, Business-Driven Data Analysis. You’ll learn a proven and repeatable approach you can
leverage across data projects to deliver timely analysis with actionable insights and strong return on
investment. Ensure you’re driving impact in an evolving data and business landscape.