[Infographic] The Real World of Big Data

Big Data is here to stay (See post: [Infographic] The Scale & Scope of Big Data) and every day, organizations around the world are working towards identifying what they can leverage this for, or what their big data strategy needs to be, to compete in the digitized world of the 21st century and beyond. Clearly, the answers are not easy, and it will be some time before they figure it out.

Today's post provides an infographic from Wikibon that provides useful insights into what the areas of focus in the big data context can be, their potential (in dollar value terms, that is), and what some early adopters in the real business world are applying big data for.

Click image to see a larger version
 
The Real World of Big Data via Wikibon Infographics

[Infographic] The Scale & Scope of Big Data

The world is a more connected place today, and the exponential growth of disruptive technologies like social, mobile and cloud has led to an unprecedented challenge: that of an unimaginable scale and velocity of data creation. While the 'first wave' of this has been driven by humans through mediums like social networks and social networks, there is more to come: the data generated by smarter and intelligent machines. While machines and systems are already capable of doing so, the next wave (think the 'Large Hydron Collider') promises to be even more explosive!

Data is going to be the new currency of the digital age - and businesses that have access to data are scrambling for ways and means to make sense of it, a far cry from the 'information' that it has been seen as, thus far. Big Data is therefore, more of a problem, than a solution in itself. If - and there's probably not much choice not to - one wishes to address the problem and it's challenges, one has to begin understanding a lot more about Big Data.

An earlier post - The Future of Big Data - emphasized the context to the growth of big data, and how it's going to be around. Here is more on this, but with an attempt to help grasp the scale and scope of what it encompasses, and the themes it touches on. A better understanding of the problem is needed, if a solution has to be devised. It's not going to be an easy problem to address, but the good news - you may not be alone breaking your head over it!

Click to see larger

Click to see larger

[Infographic] Car Tech Countdown to 2018

Technology is advancing at a rapid pace, what with the advent of the mobile revolution, and technologies powering it. The mobile phone is touted to be THE single most important device (or tech) that will power people's lives in the next decade.

The technologies for such devices are no doubt finding new applications, and one such area that is seen to be impacted greatest, is likely to be that of personal travel: the car. With Google's self-drive car being cleared for road driving in some places, the future isn't really that far, some say.

Here's a peek into what the future of Car Tech holds in the next 5 years:
(Source: http://www.landlautomotive.co.uk/mercedes-benz/news-and-events/car-technology-countdown-to-2018.aspx)

[InfoGraphic] It's a SaaS World

ProfitBricks has just published an infographic that describes the history of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), how it compares to other cloud service delivery paradigms such as Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and the leading SaaS types in use across the world today.

It's a great primer for one and all!

Courtesy of: ProfitBricks - Cloud Computing 2.0

[Infographic] Google Glass From the Inside

Early last spring, Google announced the advent of Google Glass -sporty and snazzy piece of the new generation of wearable computing technology. Google Glass is being readied, with the first pieces of the sci-fi style glasses being ready to be shipped by late 2013 (we gather).

If you are keen, then the specs include a tranparent LCD or AMOLED display, a front facing camera, GPS, motion sensors, Wi-fi or Bluetooth enabled, running Android. (For the full specs, see this)

If you want to know how Google Glass works for the user, then check it this video.



If you're curious to know how it really works - internally, that is - then check out this great infographic (by Droid-life.com) below.


(Click on the image to view full size)

Making Big Data Work: The Hadoop Family

Click to visit the Apache Hadoop page

Big Data is not just a buzz word today - it's probably a precursor to the stark reality in the increasingly digitized world of Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Apple iOS/iPhone and Google Android (see post: [Infographic]: Amazon Web Services - Behind the Scene).

It's not just the technology and Cloud-service vendors who are interested in big data. It's a growing number of retail businesses, utility companies, and more (see post: [Infographic]: The Future of Big Data). The volume of data generated every moment continues to rise, and is expected to grow as more 'smart' devices enter our personal and work environments.

Indeed this is exciting in itself, and quite unprecedented in human history, questions abound in everyone's minds. While there are no easy answers, one thing that we're watching is the evolution of the technology that can make all this worth it - the handling, the processing, the scaling, the 'smart' analytics, driving the intelligent business of tomorrow.

So, with all the buzz around Big Data, we thought its best to devote a post to these set of technologies. And, one such technology - rather, suite of technologies - is Hadoop and it's related tech components. The Apache™ Hadoop® project develops open-source software for reliable, scalable, distributed computing, and has evolved through many years now, with companies like Yahoo!, Google and Facebook contributing significantly to it.

To understand big data better, it's important to get an understanding of some of these core technology components, and here you'll find 3 great slide decks on the topic. (Thanks to the folks for sharing these and making them available)

1. The Family of Hadoop

By Nam Nham

2. The Evolution of the Hadoop Ecosystem

By Cloudera, Inc.

3.  Spotting Hadoop in the wild

By klbostee

For more posts on big data, see:
Big Data Architectures
[Infographic] The Future of Big Data

Also, for some good resources on big data, please check out LinksAnywhere.com

[Infographic] The Future of Big Data

A visualization of Wikipedia edits (by IBM)

As the industry and consumers begin to come to terms with Cloud and Mobile technologies, there's already a new buzz that's creating waves and excitement. Big Data - some of you'll may have heard it, while for most others, it may conjure up different images.

According to Wikipedia:
"big data is a collection of data sets so large and complex, it becomes difficult to process using hands-on database management tools or traditional data processing applications. The challenges include capture, curation, storage, search, sharing, analysis and visualization..."

With the rise of social technologies, powered by the digital, mobile and portable devices, the volume and variety of data passing through the cloud is unprecedented in scale. Add to that, the increasing non-PC and non-phone-like devices (i.e. machines) which can generate thousands of bytes of data per second, and we have a BIG problem - capturing, storing and analyzing this unstructured data to derive meaningful information - for the users, for the business, for all those who care! That's what Big Data is all about.

So, is this only a passing buzz, hyped by the ones who are good at it? Well, possibly not. Here's an infographic that summarizes all about Big Data - now and for tomorrow - for you. With Big Data, it can't get any simpler than this!

click to enlarge