Assignment: Big Data
Background:
You are a business analyst at your organization and your Chief Information Officer (CIO) has asked you to begin researching how Big Data might be useful at your company. We may want to invite some vendors in to present to us, but we don't know where to start. Your research will give us a starting point.
For this assignment, you are not expected to complete the research, but rather, just get it started. This assignment is intended to introduce you to one approach to distilling lots of qualitative information into something more easily digested.
Steps:
1. Write at least one paragraph explaining what Big Data is. Use your own words.
2. Write at least one sentence describing each of the following:
a. MapReduce
b. Hadoop
c. Hive
d. Spark
3. Pick any three (3) sources from the Research List below. Read the research for those three sources.
4. Create a matrix (in MS Word or Excel) of research sources, a description of who the source is, and the important points or trends they offer. If the point/trend is repeated by more than one researcher, merge the point into one row of the matrix. An example of a matrix is presented below, and in a separate download. Feel free to create your own format.
5. Pick one (1) vendor from the Solution Provider List below. Read the offerings for the one vendor.
6. Add the vendor as a column to your matrix.
7. Match up the capabilities/features of the vendor's solution with the points/trends from the researchers. If the vendor mentions something different from the researchers, add it as a separate row in the matrix.
8. Provide some information about the vendor. This does not have to be too exhaustive. Information to include, if you can find it, are things like:
a. Is the company public or private?
b. Annual revenue
c. Number of employees
d. How long has it been in business?
We want to see how aligned the solution provider is with the research. This assignment should not take you more than a few hours to complete. However, feel free to spend as much time as you want on it.