Monday, April 4, 2016

The Future Perils And Promises Of Big Data

            In the modern world of technology big data is a subject that is shaping the technological world into something incredible. The article “The Future Perils And Promises Of Big Data - Cloudera Co-Founder Mike Olson Shares His Views” talks about how big data came from being an item no one particularly cared for to being a important item in the world of data analytics.
            The first point I walk to talk about is how fast Big Data platforms took off when companies began to realize the value of Big Data. In the article Mike Olson said, “When we started in 2008 no one was talking about Big Data at all. The only people who knew about Hadoop were Java programmers working for Facebook or Yahoo.” (1).  Hadoop is an “open-source software framework for storing data and running applications on clusters of commodity hardware. It provides massive storage for any kind of data, enormous processing power and the ability to handle virtually limitless concurrent tasks or jobs” (2). In layman’s terms Hadoop was one of the fist software’s designed to handle Big Data and is a pioneer in the field. Fast forward 3 or 4 years and Big Data is being called “the tool which will redefine business” (1).
            The second point of the article I want to talk about is how Big Data is changing the world. The article talks about the common point of Big Data, which is better marketing of products and engagement with customers. The more interesting point however deals with the field of medicine. Olson talked about how the technology developed by Cloudera led to Cerner Corporation’s work with predictive analysis (1). The predictive analysis looks back upon the patients’ medical history and predicts possible sickness based on his past and what the current symptoms are. Olson also talks about the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) which, is Cloudera’s own medical technology involving Big Data (3). PMI gather data form every type of medical machine hooked up to its system including thermometers and ear rate machines (3).
            The third part of the article that was interesting was the ethical debate of Big Data and what would happen if the information were hacked. Olson said the protection of the data was important to him and he said, “The reason we’ve invested so much in this space is because of the damage that could be done by poorly secured infrastructure. We’ve got to build the mechanisms that protect the data.” (1). Olson wants the debate on Big Data ethics to be between everyone and not just the private sector or the companies that use the software’s.
            I think the article overlooked the other perils of Big Data mining, how the simplifying of Hadoop will affect the needs for Big Data experts in companies, and the storage off the vast quantity of data. With so much data constantly being collected and analyzed where is one to stores this incredible amount of data without having mass server farms that are hard to reach for outside users. 


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