Build a Strategy for Big Data Platforms
Big Data; let’s talk about the elephant in the room.
Info-Tech Research Group
1
Introduction
Select the right platforms to manage and gain value from your data, whether
this means big data technologies or relational databases.
This Research Is Designed For:
This Research Will Help You:
 Enterprises producing increasing amounts of
 Define big data, including what it is, who it
data, which require new methods of data
management; particularly, organizations in the
mid-sized space.
 Marketing, IT, and Infrastructure managers
looking for best practices for implementation of
big data systems.
 Business managers wanting to gain insights
into big data strategy.
 Data management professionals seeking
further understanding of big data, including its
past and potential future values.
applies to, and what some of the related
challenges are.
 Understand the hype around big data, along
with its uses, and what value you can gain
from big data.
 Identify whether big data services are right for
your organization, and select the right data
services for your organization.
 Develop insights on big data strategies and
how they can be used to create value in
datasets.
Info-Tech Research Group
2
Executive Summary
• The big data market is young, and solutions that are appropriate today might not work for tomorrow. Your big data strategy
needs to be a work-in-progress. Refresh it on an ongoing basis to achieve the most successful deployment possible.
• Big data has four primary attributes:
– Variety, from email to images
– Volume, terabytes to petabytes that complicate data management
– Velocity, time sensitive and real-time
– Value, driving insight into business performance. Ensure that value is central to your big data strategy.
• The magic of big data is in the analytics. Make sure your data management platform is able to support the type of analytics
your business would like to conduct. Without the proper BI tools to make use of, your data (even 3 petabytes of
information) won’t provide useful insight.
• Ignore the hype around big data and objectively evaluate whether SQL or NoSQL is appropriate for your particular use
case. Big data tools and relational databases both have a place; it’s not about the tool, it’s about the job.
• Organizations that think they have big data problems often just have data management problems. Clarify your problem
before assuming big data technologies will meet your needs.
• Identify a concrete business problem to solve, match it with appropriate tools and find and train the right team to support
and promote your initiative.
Info-Tech Research Group
3
What is Big Data?
What’s in this Section:
• A good big data strategy centers on finding value in
an organization’s data. The volume, velocity, and
variety of data only assist value.
• Big data tools and relational databases both have a
Sections:
What is Big Data?
The Tactics and the Technologies
Create a “big data” management
strategy
place; it’s not about the tool, it’s about the job.
• Learn the appropriate jargon to protect yourself
from inappropriate solutions.
Info-Tech Research Group
4
Your business may not care about big data today, but they
probably will tomorrow. Prepare yourself!
IT needs to have a strategy for managing big data, even if the strategy is that
your current solution is still sufficient.
• To the business, big data equals one thing:
VALUE. The business is concerned with the benefits
78% of the push for big data analytics
comes from outside of IT. This is a
business-driven technology!
of analytics and the potential for increased business
insight.
• Managing the technical details of big data is IT’s
responsibility. IT needs to act as the voice of reason
when determining whether or not a big data solution is
beneficial to the organization.
• If your decision is that big data tools aren’t appropriate,
you will still need to justify your choice. Have an
explanation ready, so you can cover your bases and
prevent your organization from making the wrong
choices.
N= 46 Source: Info-Tech
Research Group
Big data is getting the same type of attention that grids did ten years ago. You heard all about grid
computing, and everybody had their own grid computing stack after that, and everything was labeled as grid.
I see the same thing with big data.
– Chris Mattman, Senior Computer Scientist, NASA JPL
Info-Tech Research Group
5
The mythology around big data is growing, but what is big
data and what does it mean for your organization?
Over the past few years, the term big data has crept into IT vocabulary and
the mainstream media, but there is still little consensus on its definition.
What is big data?
Volume
 Value - Data has no inherent value until it’s used to solve a
business problem
 Variety -The type of data being produced is increasingly
diverse and ranges from email and social media to geo-spatial
and photographic data. This data may be difficult to process
using a structured data model.
 Volume - The sheer size of the datasets is growing
exponentially, often ranging from terabytes to petabytes. This
is complicating traditional data management strategies.
 Velocity - The increasing speed at which data is being
collected and processed is also causing complications. Big
data is often time sensitive and needs to be captured in realtime as it is streaming into the enterprise.
Value
Velocity
Variety
The real importance of big data lies in its value
to an organization. The velocity, volume and
variety of big data means little if not used to
improve business decisions and solve business
problems. Better data means better insights,
which means better decisions and better
business results.
Info-Tech Research Group
6
Your data management strategy should start with a business
problem and find a solution that may include big data tools
Organizations are reporting steep increases in
the amount of both structured and unstructured
data they manage.
While most believe they are effective at managing
structured data, they consider themselves
ineffective at managing unstructured data.
But this
does not
necessarily
require an
entirely new
approach to
managing
data.
Don’t hit the panic button just yet! Yes, the volume, velocity and variety of data is increasing, but that doesn’t mean
that your organization needs a big data solution.
Too many organizations are jumping into big data deployments without knowing the consequences. Don’t abandon
your traditional relational database management systems (RDBMS) just yet. Slow down and think about what you are
going to do with your data before jumping into any new initiatives.
In the big data market, use case is key. Figure out your businesses problems, explore and evaluate your options, and
then select a solution – whether it involves big data technologies or not.
Info-Tech Research Group
7
The best solution might be a combination of big data
platforms and relational databases
• A majority of organizations feel that their existing relational
databases are effective at managing structured data. Relational
databases may no longer be able to handle all of your data needs
and adding a big data technology might be necessary.
• However, because there are still advantages to using SQL
(structured query language), many organizations are using a
combination of new big data tools and SQL in order to best
manage their data.
Note: This strategy isn’t new.
Organizations already make use
of a number of different relational
database platforms. Adding a big
data database won’t be without
its complications, but if done
correctly, it can be just another
database in the mix.
Example
An online store has an existing SQL
Database that manages its authorization
system and storefront. SQL is necessary in
order to ensure no lost transactions and full
ACID compliance.
The store also tracks its social activity
using a Key/Value database. This
database provides speed and can easily
store large amounts of data but provides
less consistency than a SQL solution.
However, as social data is not as critical as
transactional, this solution is appropriate.
The store also provides recommendations
to customers about products they might
like. They use a Column database for this
purpose. SQL is not necessary because the
information is not relational.
Info-Tech Research Group
8
Sometimes the properties of your data mean that even “big
data” is better handled by a relational database
• Not every organization that has big data has all 4
of the criteria – velocity, variety, volume and value.
If you are missing part of the equation, or if you
have certain compliance or transactional needs,
you might not want to migrate off of your SQL
solutions.
• Organizations can do big data in a mature way
using SQL, and in many cases, SQL is actually the
more appropriate platform for your big data. It all
comes down to the right tools for the job.
There can be this nearly religious belief among
inexperienced Big Data proponents that any
system more than a year old is inherently broken
and wrong. But there is a reason that we have
done things as we have done them. We need to
be more humble about understanding how things
are done.
Tom Deutsch, Big Data Architect, IBM
For more on relational databases, refer to Assess
Oracle’s Role in the Enterprise Database Strategy &
Upgrade to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2.
The Ministry of Education is responsible for managing
data about students around the province. They have
over 125 million records (students), 241 million rows
and over 15 years worth of data. The data is stored
using 450 tables, but the only variety is at attribute
level (i.e. Standardized testing, performance, etc).They
receive the data from individual schools in giant chunks
four times a year.
The Ministry decided against using big data tools
to manage their data and is still using a RDBMS.
Although they have large amounts of data, the type of
their data and the velocity at which they receive it
means that a RDBMS is still best. They also have
compliance and privacy issues that make NoSQL an
unsuitable choice.
Each school and school board was sending the data to
the Ministry using different schemas and this
inconsistency made data management difficult and
decreased the value of the data for BI purposes.
The Ministry took a master data management
approach. Over the course of 4 years, they created
common methodologies and a data usage framework
that ensured the data they were sent and the data they
used for reports and presentations was the same.
Info-Tech Research Group
9
Info-Tech Research Group Helps IT Professionals To:



Quickly get up to speed
with new technologies

Manage business expectations

Justify IT spending and
prove the value of IT

Train IT staff and effectively
manage an IT department
Make the right technology
purchasing decisions – fast
Deliver critical IT
projects, on time and
within budget
Sign up for free trial membership to get practical
solutions for your IT challenges
“Info-Tech helps me to be proactive instead of reactive –
a cardinal rule in a stable and leading edge IT environment.
•
- ARCS Commercial Mortgage Co., LP
Toll Free: 1-888-670-8889
www.infotech.com
Info-Tech Research Group
10