Tag Archives: hadoop

Office Life

Ruminants’ Ruminations, or The Coolest Things We Ingested This Year

Another best-of list blog post! Another best-of list blog post whose preface warns you it is a best-of list blog post! So sue me. Or don’t read it. ‘Tis the season, and I’m a copycat.

2011’s been a kind of wild and crazy year, both for us as a company and for the software world as a whole. But rather than do a straight recap, I decided to poll our crew on the hands-down coolest thing/language/trick/product/comestible/visual symphony/regular symphony they’ve ingested this year, and let you extrapolate your own state-of-the-union conclusions from these. Alors:

  • Sean Kermes:
    • Sugru! Sugru is super frigging cool.  It starts life as putty that can be hand-molded at room temperature for a bit upwards of half an hour, then over the next 24 hours it adheres to whatever you stuck it to and becomes a flexible (but tough) and slightly grippy silicone.  I’ve used it to repair and craft drawer and cabinet handles and fix some random crap, and I’m planning on starting to make some custom-fitted mouse grips so that I’m not dragging my fingers across the desk all day. Continue reading Ruminants’ Ruminations, or The Coolest Things We Ingested This Year →

Big Data, Events, SharePoint

Boston SharePoint Salon: Go Big or Go Home

Big as in data, home as in “out of business.” Because there’s only going to be more data, and people are finally realizing that not only can it be sliced and diced and visualized in formats comprehensible to the business analyst—it needs to be. The questions are: how should it be stored and queried and where should the visible representations of these queries be displayed?

Hadoop, Apache’s open source, distributed computing and storage framework based on Google’s MapReduce model is one answer to the first question. Or you could buy a supercomputer, but, those are kind of expensive! And less fun to say!  As for the second question, of course the answer depends on the type of data. As this is a SharePoint-focused Salon, though, I’m going to nominate SharePoint as one potential answer. Why? Well, Microsoft’s new Big Data Solution will put enterprise Hadoop solutions on Azure and Windows Server, including the now available SQL Server Connector, which lets you transfer data between Hadoop and SQL Server.  So, if you plan on upgrading to SQL Server 2012, you’ll be able to access data stored in Hadoop from SharePoint, and do all your slicing and dicing and displaying in PowerPivot and Power View. Presumably.

Interesting, no? We think so. If you agree, please join us at Tico (Berklee Street) this Thursday, from 7 to about 9:30 pm. You can RSVP here, or email me! And if you can’t make it, but know someone whom you think should attend, please spread the word!

Big Data

30 Hadoop and Big Data Spelunkers Worth Following

Understanding the basic purpose of Hadoop is easy: it offers a way to quickly store, process and extract deliverable meaning(s) from vast datasets. It does this by breaking the datasets up into commodity-server-sized chunks, replicating these to reduce failure, and sending them out to a connected web (cluster) of commodity servers (nodes) . Understanding how it can integrate with the current big data landscape and may integrate with the future one is a little harder—for that, I’ve turned to the experts. Luckily for me, and for you, if you’re in my boat, many of them maintain active twitter and blogging presences. Even more luckily, the quality and clarity of writing is really, really high. The following list is by no means exhaustive, but poking into the thoughts of even a few can elucidate everything from machine learning to data modeling and distributed systems.

1.) Hilary Mason

Continue reading 30 Hadoop and Big Data Spelunkers Worth Following →

Big Data

It’s Hadoop’s world. We just live in it

It’s Hadoop’s world. We just live in it. Welcome to #hw2011!

That was the starting battle-cry from Mike Olsen, CEO of Cloudera as he kicked off the third Hadoop World Conference. Indeed, after drinking the kool-aid for two days, I’ve been almost fully ingested, stored and transformed even if I have yet to be accessed, let alone managed.

For it seems that within a few years, all digital information, including my electronic Freudian id and perhaps my ego as well, will be deposited into Hadoop, forever ready to be accessed via any number of different social and structured graphs.

Hadoop background

Some have speculated that within five years, Hadoop will hold 50% of the world’s information. I now believe that to be true, albeit potentially a copy of the other 50%, if not uniquely in Hadoop.

Hadoop and its Google ancestors enable storage on a scale and scope never previously possible with baked-in redundancy and resiliency at lower operational cost than big iron solutions. And the software is free, needing nothing more common commodity hardware and a Java host.

Google created and shared the concept. Doug Cutting and a colleague started an independent Apache licensed implementation five years ago. Since then, it has been adopted by the largest web properties: Facebook, Twitter, eBay among others. Even major enterprises like JP Morgan and Disney have been using it in production for at least two years.

Commercially supported releases are available from Cloudera and Hortonworks.

The Conference

Hadoop is still in the early adopter stage and has not yet crossed Geoff Moore’s Chasm. This is most reminiscent of the state of the web circa 1994. Forward looking companies are making incredible strides in competitive advantage using primitive tools and smart developers.

Cloudera is doing great job in championing the ecosystem. They recognize that growing the overall market and adoption is the correct long term path to riches. I look forward to #hw2012.

Business Intelligence, SharePoint

Masterpiece Theatre SharePoint: Power View and Hadoop

In this episode of Masterpiece Theatre: SharePoint, we’re talking Cresent erPower View. Press play to learn why Power View is good for PowerPivot and bad for Tableau, how it transforms big Hadoop data into technophobe-friendly animated reports and what your edition of SharePoint needs to get it up and running.

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