Data cataloging increasingly looks like a good means to turn the losing big-data game in enterprises’ favor. That’s because it’s not inadequate compute power or big-data frameworks holding them back. It might actually be human cognition that needs help — and it comes in the form of data cataloging that understands human language.

The buzz about data cataloging is justified, according to Aaron Kalb (pictured), co-founder and vice president of design and strategic initiatives at Alation Inc., a collaborative data cataloging company.

Companies are marching to the technology, “thanks in part to things like Gartner telling companies in the next year, by 2020, if you have a data catalog, you’re going to see twice the ROI from your existing data investments than if you don’t,” he said. “It just turned on a dime. Now they’re asking, ‘Which data catalog should we get?’ Why is yours the best?'”

Companies should look for a data catalog that humanizes and broadly democratizes data analytics, according to Kalb. Features to look for include plain-language search functions.

Kalb sat down with John Furrier (@furrier), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, for a CUBE Conversation at theCUBE’s studio in Palo Alto, California. They discussed how cataloging makes data navigable for business people and Alation’s recent $50 million funding round.

Internet search used to suck too

For those who think vast enterprise data will never be accessible to average business folk, Kalb points to Google. “Before Google, search sucked, frankly,” he said.

In the same way Google made entire internet accessible, Alation is becoming the way that data can become actionable to organizations, according to Kalb. It bridges limited human intelligence with a powerful search engine that uses plain language. It is also smart about what data it surfaces — by looking at how it’s been used in the past. 

“It turns out what data says about itself is less reliable than what other people say about the data,” Kalb stated. 

Lowering the mental bar to understanding and using data will get organizations closer to being really “data-driven,” he said. “I think human cognition and human thought is the bottleneck for being data driven.” 

Watch the entire video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s CUBE Conversations. (* Disclosure: Alation Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Alation nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE