Business Intelligence Buyer's Guide

What to Expect at the 2023 Gartner Data and Analytics Summit March 19-22

What to Expect at the 2023 Gartner Data and Analytics Summit

What to Expect at the 2023 Gartner Data and Analytics Summit

Independent industry analyst for data and analytics Philip Russom PhD. is set to cover the 2023 Gartner Data and Analytics Summit for Solutions Review. Read on so you know what to expect.

I (Philip Russom) believe that one of the best conferences for data professionals in 2023 is coming up in a few weeks. I’d like to explain to you why I think it’s the best and what kind of benefits you can expect from attending it.

As a matter of full disclosure, let me say that I am recently retired from Gartner, Inc., and I have a high opinion of my former employer. In addition, I spent decades of my career as a specialist in data and analytics (D&A), and I am still very passionate about those fields. So, it is natural that I would put those two experiences together and conclude that the best conference of the year is the Gartner Data & Analytics Summit, coming up on March 19-22, 2023 in Orlando, Florida.

What makes the Gartner D&A Summit so special?

First of all, this summit is produced by the world’s largest and most influential “think tank” and research firm in information technology (IT), namely Gartner, Inc. Because of its size and long history, Gartner has the unique resources required to develop thought leadership and practical advice for every discipline in IT.

Second, this summit is tightly focused on data and analytics, with no pretense of covering all of IT. So, it’s the ideal event for D&A professionals or data-driven business managers, who need to learn about D&A innovations, plus peer-network with like-minded people. In my opinion, if you’re a D&A pro and your employer limits the number of events you can attend, you should put Gartner’s D&A Summit at the top of your priority list.

Third, though focused on D&A, summit content comes from a broad range of sources and presenters. For example, most of the presentations are given by Gartner analysts, who will present the findings of their research, from both theoretical and practical viewpoints. Furthermore, with few exceptions, all the software firms of the data and analytics vendor landscape are presenting and/or exhibiting. Finally, there are many “lessons learned” sessions about successful D&A programs in end-user enterprises.

What can you expect to learn by attending?

The D&A Summit includes sessions by Gartner analysts about the hottest topics in data and analytics today. Allow me to list and define some of the hot topics, plus recommend noteworthy summit sessions for each:

Download Link to Business Intelligence & Data Analytics Buyer's Guide

What to Expect at the 2023 Gartner Data and Analytics Summit


Data Fabric has become the leading-edge paradigm for data management development, deployment, and automation. Garter defines the data fabric as an architecture and set of best practices for unifying and governing multiple data management disciplines, including data integration, quality, active metadata, master data, pipelines, catalogs, and more. “Unified” means that the diverse tools of a data fabric must interoperate deeply (and perhaps have a single GUI), in both development and production. Without a fabric, organizations struggle with

data availability and access, data standards, governance, data engineer productivity, and time to use for analytics and other data products.

  • The Practical Data Fabric — How to Architect the Next Generation Data Management Design, by Ehtisham Zaidi, VP Analyst (3/20/23 12:45 PM)
  • The Active Metadata Helix: the Benefits of Automating Data Management, by Mark Beyer (3/21/23 10:00 AM)
  • Data Fabric or Data Mesh: Debate on Deciding Your Future Data Management Architecture, by Ehtisham Zaidi, VP Analyst and Robert Thanaraj, Director Analyst (3/21/23 2:00 PM)

Large-Scale Data Architectures (which Gartner often calls data ecosystems) involve a large-scale design that describes the many components of a data environment. This includes numerous datasets, data platforms, tools, use cases, and interfaces, plus how these components integrate and interact. A data architecture is usually accompanied by policies for data governance, data standards, modeling, deployments, and development procedures.

As increasing numbers of user organizations adopt cloud as their preferred computing platform, A well-designed and curated cloud data architecture is now a critical success factor for high-value, data-driven programs on cloud, namely analytics, data science, self-service data, monitoring operations via data, and sharing data across enterprise departments and partners.

  • Data Ecosystems — Integrated Data and Analytics; No Assembly Required, by Donald Feinberg, Distinguished VP Analyst (3/20/23 11 AM)
  • Technical Insights: Deploying D&A Architecture in Cloud Platforms of AWS, Azure and GCP, by Ramke Ramakrishnan, Sr Director Analyst (3/20/23 12:45 PM)
  • Roundtable: Database Management Systems – Complexities of Cloud and Hybrid, by Merv Adrian, VP Analyst (3/21/23 10:00 AM)

Best Practices for Data Engineering concern collecting raw data from multiple sources, then merging and transforming that data to be optimized for analytics and other use cases. Data engineers have long relied on skills in extract, transform, and load (ETL) and other forms of data integration. However, today’s data engineer is also cross-trained in many other data management disciplines, such as data quality, metadata management, cataloging, and multiple analytics disciplines. Furthermore, as the data engineering role continues to evolve, it increasingly relies on DataOps, data fabric, and agile methods.

  • Data Engineering Trends and Best Practices, by Sumit Pal, VP Analyst (3/22/23 10:30 AM)
  • State of the Data Integration Market: Top Trends That Can Transform Your Data Engineering Practice, by Ehtisham Zaidi, VP Analyst (3/22/23 1:30 PM)
  • 5 Ways to Enhance Your Data Engineering Practices, by Robert Thanaraj, Director Analyst (3/22/23 4:15 PM)

Cost optimization is a recurring theme across Gartner’s D&A Summit, because many user organizations are moving into unknown territory, as they migrate more IT systems to cloud and scale up their new data science programs. In those two scenarios, simply knowing the cost of daily operations is difficult, because the organization is still new to cloud and data science. In turn, users are hard pressed to answer common questions, such as “Is our projected budget for

cloud and analytics representative of actual costs?” and “Is our monthly burn of cloud resources within our consumption-based licenses for clouds, data platforms, and analytics tools?” Gartner has stretched older practices for financial governance (FinGov) and financial operations (FinOps) to also enable the quantification and monitoring of costs for cloud-based D&A solutions.

  • Optimize Your Cloud Spending Strategy for Uncertain Times, by Adam Ronthal, VP Analyst (3/20/23 11:00 AM)
  • Financial Governance and FinOps in Cloud: Avoid an Unpleasant Conversation With Your CFO, by Adam Ronthal, VP Analyst (3/21/23 2:00 PM)
  • Gartner Keynote: The New Economics of Technology and Data, by Daryl Plummer, Distinguished VP Analyst (3/21/23 5:15 PM)

Data Lakes and Data Lakehouses are drivers of innovation for databases and storage. Many D&A programs deploy a data warehouse and a data lake side-by-side, because they are complementary. The warehouse is mostly relational data for business reporting and keeping a history of corporate performance, whereas the lake is most about data science and advanced analytics, using data of any structure or file format. The Gartner view is that the warehouse and lake are now converging into the data lakehouse, which is a single data architecture that combines and unifies the architectures and capabilities of lakes and warehouses. The point of the data lakehouse is to enable greater agility for all analytics, but with less data redundancy and a more consistent view of semantics for all analytics data.

  • Avoid Data Lake Failures by Addressing Modern Lake Requirements, by Donald Feinberg, Distinguished VP Analyst (3/21/23 9:00 AM)
  • Data Lakes, Data Warehouses, Data Hubs and Now Lakehouses: What Are They and How to Choose, by Donald Feinberg, Distinguished VP Analyst (3/21/23 4:00 PM)

Final Thoughts

There is still time to register for the 2023 Gartner Data and Analytics Summit, coming up in Orlando (March 20-22, 2023), and I encourage you to register ASAP. If you live or work outside North America, you have options to consider, because the D&A Summit will repeat in Japan (April 4-6), Mumbai (May 8-9), London (May 22-24), and Sydney (July 31 to August 1). The details are listed here.

Share This

Related Posts

Insight Jam Ad

Latest Posts

Insight Jam Ad

Follow Solutions Review