The view that Machine Learning is tightly linked to optimization is becoming common knowledge.  There are training courses ( Stephen Boyd's and  Steve Wright's ) mixing the two.  The Data Smart book by John Foreman describes some key machine learning techniques as optimization problems using Microsoft Excel solver.  This book is a great read by the way. But what made me write this blog entry is that I was quite delighted when I read the following  from John Mount My opinion is the best... [More]

Tags:  machine_learning optimization analytics

The view that analytic value comes from the decisions it enables is gaining momentum. I've discussed it in my Analytics Is A Mean To An End   and  The Analytics Maturity Model posts, but I was very pleased to read the following post  from Seth Godin: Analytics without action Don't measure anything unless the data helps you make a better decision or change your actions. If you're not prepared to change your diet or your workouts, don't get on the scale. It conveys the... [More]

I had the pleasure to be invited to attend the German OR conference last week in Aachen.  There were many  highlights at this conference beside the great venue and excellent organization led by Marco Lübbecke, see for instance Mike Trick on  Laura McLay's semi plenary and Laura McLay on  Mike Trick's plenary presentation .  I will discuss here the semi plenary given by Stephen's Boyd on convex optimization.  Convex optimization is a generalization of linear programming... [More]

Tags:  theory optimization

Who among optimization practitioners hasn't heard at least one customer saying "I want the best solution" ? I certainly did. When that happens one has to manage expectations because solving real problems to optimality may not be possible in a reasonable time.  Customers must understand that finding the best solution and prove it is the best one is not always doable.  They should instead focus on finding the best possible solution in a limited amount of time.   If they agree to it, then they find it valuable to... [More]

Tags:  optimization moov analytics

Making decision based on data seems a good idea, doesn't it?  After all, this is the value promised by all Big Data promoters out there.  Let's look at a real use case to understand better what might go right or wrong.  I will focus on the decisions product managers must make when they think of the next version of their product.  Should they base product evolutions on customer feedback?  Let's first address the case of disruptive technologies.  It is (now) (well) known that the answer to the above... [More]

Tags:  big_data analytics sampling design decision

Update on June 28 2015.   A more recent release of CPLEX is now available, namely CPLEX 12.6.2 .   We are proud to announce a new release of CPLEX that will be available on December 5 for electronic delivery for paying customers.  Date for academic initiative availability isn't known yet but we'll work to make it as soon as possible. Official announce text is here .  Enhancements include significant performance improvements across the board, as well as adding some licensing flexibility for our customers. ... [More]

Tags:  analytics optimization cplex

Update on Jan 10, 2015. Decision Optimization on Cloud open beta is now available.  I documented step by step on boarding here, but you can also try by yourself here . Trying Decision Optimization on Cloud beta: part 1, Demo Trying Decision Optimization on Cloud beta: part 2, CPLEX Trying Decision Optimization on Cloud beta: part 3, OPL Our INFORMS conference slides are available at our INFORMS 2014 Annual Meeting page Original post: The IBM Decision Optimization team will be quite active at the forthcoming... [More]

Tags:  analytics cplex optimization cloud

Unless you live unplugged you certainly saw the astounding pictures of  Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko taken by the Philae lander.  Besides producing nice images, Philae embarked scientifc instruments , each developed by a European laboratory, to accomplish scientific experiments when approaching, and after landing on the comet.  Given that communication takes about 25 minutes between Earth and Philae once landed, it was very important to carefully plan every operations of the mission in advance.  Indeed, there... [More]

Tags:  constraint_programming analytics

 Imagine for one second that you are Loïc Peyron , the recent winner of the transatlantic yatch race La Route Du Rhum .  What would you use to reach your destination as fast as possible?  Of course, you would work on getting the fastest possible yacht.  You would also train to maneuver your ship the best possible way.  But once the race is on and you're on the sea, what tools would you use to decide in which direction you should steer the ship?   Credit: Wikipedia For several thousand... [More]

Tags:  predictive optimization prescriptive analytic

How could we have helped Santa deliver its gifts as fast as possible? An OR practitioner will probably model Santa's problem as a traveling salesman problem ( TSP ).  Indeed Santa needs to compute the shortest route through all kids homes.  The same OR practitioner may also want to model that deliveries must occur at night.  Instead of a TSP, the problem becomes a vehicle routing with time windows (VRPTW) problem.  Although common wisdom, these models may miss the point as we shall see below. Before discussing what might... [More]

Tags:  predictive prescriptive analytic optimization

The 5 most read entries for this blog in 2014 are the following.   The Analytics Maturity Model Solving the hardest Sudoku - part 1 How Were Rosetta/Philae Operations Scheduled? Memory Locality Data Science Is Hard: A Look At Sotchi Olympics   You can access the top entries of all time via this link . I would like to thank again all the readers that made writing in this blog worth doing.  Readership has increased in 2014... [More]

This is prediction season. I never played that game so far, but felt compelled to do so after reading quite a few predictions about what will happen in 2015 around Analytics and Big Data.  I won't repeat what seems to be a consensus, and will refer to two specific lists that I found more interesting than others. The first list is by Nathan Brixius, from Microsoft.  Here are the top items, I'll let you read Nathan's blog to get the meat behind the titles. Adoption of higher productivity analytics programming... [More]

Tags:  big_data analytics optimization prescriptive

We just announced the open beta for our forthcoming  Decision Optimization on Cloud offering.  This is a major step forward in making optimization more consumable by born in the web applications.  The first drop of our service enable operations research (OR) practitioners to solve their problems online via a very simple interaction.  We will expose service APIs in future drops, stay tuned. Let us look at how the service can be used right now.  It assumes you have one or several optimization problems to solve, stored in... [More]

In our previous entry we made a demo tour of our Decision Optimization on Cloud service.  Let us now start real work with CPLEX.  The first step is to get an IBM ID.  If you don't have one yet, then you can start here .  The next step is to go to the registration page that is accessible in various ways from the demo page .  It lets you create an IBM ID if you don't have one.  Assuming you have got one, we move to the next page by clicking on the Already have an IBM id? link.... [More]

Tags:  analytics cloud saas optimization oaas