Management and visualization of user and network data

Abstract

The use of interactive imagery to capture, convey and conjure — in many ways both an art and a science — is a field of growing importance and relevance. At a fundamental level, a series of interconnected communication pipes, storage hubs, and users comprise the essential artifacts in communication systems today, yet managing and understanding information flows at an actionable level remains elusive. The application of interactive processing and visualization to these — often massively large — information flows (messages, streams, user-actions) at varying scales and dimensions is a fundamental aspect of big data visualization and enterprise analytics. Scale is a relative concept but distinct challenges arise when data becomes petabyte large, streams arrive almost inconceivably quickly, and the user-base is massive. Today, carriers, over-the-top service providers, Web and mobile startups, and academics all strive for new information management and visualization techniques aimed at addressing the difficult challenges posed by this aforementioned big user and network data. For example, a distinct value statement for user and network data management emerges relating to cybersecurity in which network flows, user passwords, and other information are fused and analyzed in order to mitigate system mis-configurations, vulnerabilities and attacks.