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HOME >> OPINIONS

Getting in a Big Data state of mind

By Kenneth Chestnut

June 3, 2011 — (Page 1 of 4)

One of the most hyped terms in information management today is Big Data. Everyone seems excited by the concept and related possibilities, but is the "Big" in Big Data mere a state of mind? Yes, it is.

Organizations are realizing the potential challenges resulting from the explosion of unstructured information: e-mails, images, log files, cables, user-generated content, documents, videos, blogs, contracts, wikis, Web content... the list goes on. Traditional technologies and information management practices may no longer prove sufficient given today’s information environment. Therefore, forward-looking organizations and individuals are evaluating new technologies and concepts like Big Data in an attempt to address the unstructured information overload that is currently underway. Some forward-thinking organizations even view these challenges as opportunities to derive new insight and gain competitive advantage.

On the other side of the equation, some technology vendors are equally excited by the potential of Big Data as a Big Market Opportunity. Storage vendors focus on the sheer volume of Big Data (petabytes of information giving way to exabytes and eventually zettabytes) and the need for organizations to have efficient and comprehensive storage for all of that information. Data warehousing and business intelligence vendors emphasize the need for advanced statistical and predictive analytical capabilities to sift through the vast volume of information to make sense of it, and to find the proverbial needle in the haystack, typically using newer technologies such as MapReduce and Hadoop, which are cheaper than previous technologies. And so on.

While advanced organizations see tremendous opportunity for harnessing Big Data, how do they start addressing both the challenges and the potential opportunities given the numerous definitions and confusion that exists in the marketplace today? What if I belong to an organization that doesn’t have information in the petabytes (going to exabytes) scale? Does Big Data apply to me—or you?

This is why Big Data can be considered a state of mind rather than something specific. It becomes a concept that is applicable to any organization that feels that current tools, technologies, and processes are no longer sufficient for managing and taking advantage of their information management needs, regardless of whether its data is measured in gigabytes, terabytes, exabytes or zettabytes.

Related Search Term(s): databases

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