The importance that data is playing in business is hard to downplay.
Data is growing exponentially in size and as it does its ability to not only affect our business decisions but also has the potential to become the bedrock of some of the highest earning industries of the future. From Data science to the Internet of Things, data is poised to become one of the most important tools for the businessperson of tomorrow.
Which brings us to the issue of how you actually manage to take advantage of that huge mound of data.
There are plenty of resources online to help you navigate this brave new world, but here we’ll be focusing on one: Hadoop.
Considering that the terabytes only continue to pile up on us, the world of tomorrow is going to need faster, more efficient, more insightful and just overall better methods of processing data so companies can derive insights from it.
Hadoop is a software program that is looking to help companies access data like never before. An open-source program, Hadoop is the way to store and analyze large amounts of data through a system that employs an interconnected network of nodes. Being open-source, it is constantly improving and cost-effective. Some of the biggest companies in the world, in fact, like Google and Yahoo!, use Hadoop to help manage their endless waves of data. Think about how much data Google has to sort through, and it’s pretty clear that they would need some pretty powerful software to help with their burden.
With a focus on helping companies both big and small (though particularly useful for larger companies with more nodes that help improve the effectiveness), Hadoop is having a popular moment that may translate into it becoming the industry standard for how data is stored, processed and analyzed.
Which means that folks who can work their way around Hadoop are in a fortunate position, and that brings us to Hadoop as a Service (HaaS) and its complementary applications.
How Hadoop as a service helps you get the most out of your data
HaaS is a natural extension to the Hadoop software. Seeing as how Hadoop is already cherished by some of tech’s biggest titans, it would only make sense that more companies would come to trust the software.
And as more businesses are looking to take advantage of all that Hadoop has to offer in making sense of data, HaaS is a tertiary service that provides the necessary framework to fully engage with Hadoop through the use of a third-party vendor.
Essentially, HaaS provides the help you need to power your business via the use of Hadoop and data.
Some of the biggest providers of HaaS include giants like Amazon and IBM. It’s a big business bent on letting your company take full advantage of all that data has to offer.
A HaaS provider should offer a number of Hadoop supports, including:
- Hadoop framework deployment support
- Hadoop cluster management
- Alternative programming languages
- Data transfer between clusters
- Customizable and user-friendly dashboards and data manipulation
- Security features
And HaaS is only going to get bigger and better.
TechNavio’s analysts forecast the Global HaaS market to in the midst of a heavy growth period at a compound annual growth rate of 84.81% over the period 2014-2019.
With growth, of course, comes bigger profits.
According to Zion Market Research, the global Hadoop market was valued at approximately $7.69 billion in 2016 and is expected to reach approximately $87.14 billion by 2022.
All indications are that both Hadoop and the resultant scaffold industry of HaaS will likely be there to propel the data processing sector into new heights of not only profitability for themselves but also data literacy for their users.
The fact is that data’s importance cannot be downplayed in terms of its role in tomorrow and today’s business environment. HaaS steps in to help businesses make sense of data by giving them tools and providing the framework necessary to work through the endless streams of bytes.
The huge quantity of unmanaged data can also have dire consequences on a business, which makes having Hadoop all the more necessary.
With some of the most trusted and successful companies in the world using Hadoop or providing HaaS for smaller organizations looking to make the most out of their data, it’s never been easier or more affordable for your company to acquire valuable insights from the wealth of information that awaits.
Using data to inform business decisions is nothing new, but the breadth and depth of these new tools used to asses and process the seemingly infinite mass of data is. HaaS is simply one more way that companies both large and small can make use of data to push their business forward.
Consider what Philip Russom, Transforming Data With Intelligence research director, had to say on the topic of Hadoop during an October webinar.
“The primary path to getting business value from big data, and a lot of new data, like machine data, is through analytics. There are challenges around Hadoop, but I don’t see them stopping anybody,” he said.
“Hadoop is known for its linear scalability. Hadoop can become, essentially, a bigger and better data staging area for both warehousing and data integration.”
He went on to discuss Hadoop’s issues with data governance.
“Hadoop has desirable use cases, but it can be a challenge in terms of data governance. Don’t forget—Hadoop is still kind of new, and it’s still kind of spartan in a lot of ways. That’s part of the secret sauce.”
How do I know if HaaS is right for me?
While Big Data is definitely something every business wants to engage and get a handle on so as to improve their information pool and decision-making capabilities, obviously not all companies will benefit equally from the use of a program like Hadoop and HaaS.
HaaS and Hadoop are great for their cost-effectiveness but increase in efficiency depending on the number of nodes being used, and therefore tend to benefit larger companies more due to the larger network.
But ultimately, Hadoop and HaaS offer understandable, user-friendly ways to engage with data that will help you acquire top tier data processing software and capabilities without having to shell out huge amounts of cash. In a world that is over-saturated with information, HaaS helps you sort through the chaos and come to better business decisions. With an offer like that, it’s hard to say no.
