What is a “Hadoop”? Explaining Big Data to the C-Suite by Vincent Granville.
From the post:
Keep hearing about Big Data and Hadoop? Having a hard time understanding what is behind the curtain?
Hadoop is an emerging framework for Web 2.0 and enterprise businesses who are dealing with data deluge challenges – store, process and analyze large amounts of data as part of their business requirements.
The continuous challenge online is how to improve site relevance, performance, understand user behavior, and predictive insight. This is a never ending arms race as each firm tries to become the portal of choice in a fast changing world. Take for instance, the competitive world of travel. Every site has to improve at analytics and machine learning as the contextual data is changing by the second- inventory, pricing, recommendations, economic conditions, natural disasters etc.
Hadoop has rapidly emerged as a viable platform for Big Data analytics. Many experts believe Hadoop will subsume many of the data warehousing tasks presently done by traditional relational systems. This will be a huge shift in how IT apps are engineered.
I don’t find it helpful to confuse Big Data and Hadoop. Very different things and not helpful for folks in the C-Suite to confuse them. Unless, of course, you are selling Hadoop services and want people to think Hadoop everytime they hear Big Data.
But I am really too close to Hadoop and related technologies to reliably judge explanations for the C-Suite so why not have a poll? Nothing fancy, just comment using one of the following descriptions or make up your own if mine aren’t enough:
I think the “What is ‘Hadoop’?…” explanation:
- Is as good as IT explanations get for the C-Suite.
- Is adequate but could use (specify changes)
- “Everyone […] is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.” (Billy Madison)
Comments?