What is the relationship between Hadoop and the data warehouse? That’s one of the primary questions being asked in the 451 Research 2013 Hadoop survey. Through our conversations with Hadoop users to date we’ve seen that the answer to that question differs from company to company, depending on how far advanced they are in terms of their adoption.
For the most part we see that Hadoop is being used for workloads that were not previously on the data warehouse as part of a strategy of storing, processing and analyzing data that was previous ignored due to being unsuitable – either in terms of cost or data format – for analysis using a relational data warehouse.
However, we also see some companies taking advantage of the cost advantages of storing data in Hadoop to offload workloads from the data warehouse, either temporarily or permanently.
And at the other end of the spectrum we also see companies in which Hadoop is being used, or at least considered at this stage, as a replacement for the data warehouse.
Which use-cases are most popular? That’s one of the things our survey is designed to find out. The early results indicate a greater preference for Hadoop being used for workloads that were not previously on the data warehouse and also Hadoop being used to permanently migrate some workloads from the data warehouse, but it is still early stages.
While that accounts for the way in which Hadoop is being used today, it doesn’t get to the heart of the long-term potential for Hadoop in relation to the data warehouse. Therefore, the survey also asks about the long-term potential to replace the data warehouse.
Again we see a spectrum of strategies in action, from some companies planning for Hadoop to eventually completely replace the data warehouse, through some moving the majority of workloads to Hadoop, through others moving a minority of workloads to Hadoop, to those that believe Hadoop will never replace the data warehouse.
Again the early survey results are interesting, with ‘a minority of workloads will move to Hadoop’ and ‘Hadoop will never replace the data warehouse’ the most popular answers at this early stage.
To give your view on this and other questions related to the adoption of Hadoop, please take our 451 Research 2013 Hadoop survey.
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