Hadoop Summit keynote preview: What is the point of Hadoop?

I am very pleased and honoured to have been asked to provide a keynote presentation at the inaugural Hadoop Summit Europe, which will be held in Amsterdam on March 20-21.

The title of my talk is “What is the point of Hadoop?” which isn’t as derogatory as it sounds. Our research suggests there are hundreds of potential workloads that are suitable for Hadoop, but three core roles:

  • Big data storage: Hadoop as a system for storing large, unstructured, data sets
  • Big data processing/integration: Hadoop as a data ingestion/ETL layer
  • Big data analytics: Hadoop as a platform new new exploratory analytic applications

The flexibility of Apache Hadoop is one of its biggest assets – enabling businesses to generate value from data that was previously considered too expensive to be stored and processed in traditional databases – but also results in Hadoop meaning different things to different people.

As early adopters press ahead with innovative new analytic applications, many mainstream enterprises are are still scratching their heads trying to demonstrate Hadoop’s value. While it is very tempting to try and run before you can walk when you see others demonstrating the potential for Hadoop-based analytics it is my view that trying to jump ahead to Hadoop-based analytics without first understanding Hadoop’s storage and integration roles runs the risk of confusion and, potentially, disillusionment.

My keynote presentation at Hadoop Summit Europe will explore the impact that Hadoop is having on the traditional data processing landscape, examining the expanding ecosystem of vendors and their relationships with Apache Hadoop, exploring adoption trends around the world, and highlighting how an understanding of the roles Hadoop can play will be essential to helping Hadoop cross the chasm from early adopters to mainstream adoption.

Anyone interested in attending the event can get a 20% discount, using the registration code 13aslett20.

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