Monday, December 02, 2013

The only V that counts in Big Data is Value

So what is Big Data?  Its Variety, Velocity, Volume right?  But what does that really mean?  Should I get loads of data and drop it into Hadoop, pull in anything I can lay my hands on and I'm now 'doing Big Data'?

Should I plug in my packet monitoring software and store in Hadoop and I'm doing Big Data?  Should I get as many different data sources and that means I'm doing Big Data?

The reality is that one thing hasn't changed and its the key driver for Big Data in the way that it should be in any IT program - Value.  What is the point of what you are doing?  Does the business care? If there isn't a point or the business doesn't care then why on earth are you doing it?

Stop focusing on the 3 Vs of Big Data and worry only about the fourth, the one that really matters

Value.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Agreed! Even in the service of clients that insist on implementing some kind of Big Data project, we should help them understand the cost to benefit ratio of this particular type of computing paradigm. It is far from insignificant and requires an entirely new set of skills.