UPDATED 16:00 EDT / FEBRUARY 27 2013

The 3 Best Places to Be in the Big Data Market

If last year was all about the exploration of Big Data, then 2013 is all about the execution.  Making Big Data work, the theme of Strata’s conference this week, is a great opportunity to see this Big Data implementation in action, as validated by Intel’s new distro, announced at the event yesterday morning.  But as we turn the page on Big Data’s next chapter, the questions of its market size, potential and the industry’s current position on Big Data’s growth scale remain to be seen.

These questions were discussed during our live broadcast at Strata with theCube, where hosts John Furrier and Dave Vellante spoke with Edd Dumbill, Principal Analyst for O’Reilly Radar and Program Chair for the O’Reilly Strata Conference.  After hosting seven Strata events in the past few years, Dumbill has one of the best seats in the house, when it comes to overlooking the Big Data market, its maturation and future.

As companies get giddy over the promise of Big Data, its installation  accessibility and usability come into question.  Certainly, Big Data has placed new requirements on IT infrastructure, and Dumbill cites Facebook’s “cold servers” as an example of how the data center has changed in response to our exponentially mounting love affair with data storage and management   These “cold servers” are called so because they’re present solely for the purpose of hosting photos that will likely never be viewed again.  Despite Facebook’s album-flipping being one of the most popular pastimes for bored office workers, nearly 90 percent of images uploaded to the social network are looked at immediately, and promptly forgotten.

Intel’s new Hadoop offering, which bakes in the Big Data framework at the chip level, also speaks to the changes happening in the data center.  “One thing I give Intel props for; they want to increase performance and security,” Furrier says during the interview.  Performance is a key area of development for Big Data solutions, as more companies seek increasing integration options for data management  pulling information from disparate sources and analyzing it in standardized forms.

Here’s where we are in the current Big Data market…

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As far as the industry’s placement on Big Data’s growth trajectory, Dumbill feels we’re, as he puts it, “at the top of the second inning.”  We’re wondering “where to put [Hadoop] and how to use it in our organizations.”

At an event like Strata, Intel’s not the only company unveiling fresh Hadoop distros.  EMC Greenplum had a major announcement yesterday, as well as Cloudera.  And that’s still just the tip of the iceberg.  As a key driver in Big Data development, Hadoop is certainly a beloved framework currently being applied to the enterprise.  But Wikibon analyst Jeff Kelly feels that the bubbling war between Hadoop distros will create an oversaturated market where only a select few solutions will become prominent.

Indeed, the Hadoop War has been a hot button topic on theCube this week, given Cloudera’s efforts to maintain its lead in Hadoop services and EMC Greenplum’s recent, and rather aggressive, push into the space.  But Dumbill feels this warring amongst Hadoop distros is bad for business.

…and here’s where you want to be.

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When it comes to the best places to be in the Big Data market, the ongoing battle between Hadoop distros is “not where it’s at,” Dumbill says.  “It’s the bickering with Hadoop people that doesn’t help.  Let’s look at the next level,” he suggests.

So what are the best positions in the Big Data market?  According to Dumbill, the place to be is:

  1. On the metal side (hardware – i.e. Intel’s new Hadoop-ready chip)
  2. Data sets, if you can turn it into value
  3. Interaction of data with people

“One of the most important things is creating a data platform that’s agile,” Dumbill explains, expanding on the earlier topic of performance improvements for Big Data deployments.  “This lets employees get to the data without asking permission.  That’s where the users are going.” 

You can see the recording of Dumbill’s entire interview later today on our YouTube channel, where you’ll also find more exclusive interviews with Big Data’s best and brightest, from Strata and other great events in the Big Data and Cloud spaces.

photo credit: StuSeeger via photopin cc

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