Two important reasons why Big Data is gaining lot of traction in Cloud

In my recent blog with respect to Cloud BI, I have talked about some of the important points

that need to be addressed/ progressed up on to increase penetration of Business Intelligence (BI)

solutions in cloud. While writing that article, I was thinking about the deployment/adoption of big data

solutions in cloud.

Wikibon based on the recent market forecast exercise, concluded that cloud services accounted

for just USD 1.3 billion of the overall big data market which is at USD 27.3 billion in 2014. Even though

share of cloud services is very minimal, the trend is changing very fast and moving in the positive

direction. Let's analyze the reasons for the same.

Two important aspects which we need to look at while analyzing these trends are as follows:

Infrastructure

Hadoop eco system (Big Data Platform) came into existence when conventional data

architectures & frameworks are not able to handle current day volumes and varieties of data in an

effective and optimal way. One fundamental characteristic of this eco system is that, you can extend

your infrastructure by adding low cost servers/CPU's (Horizontal Scaling) to handle additional volumes of

data. Cloud computing is all about providing cost effective and flexible infrastructure, platforms and

applications as a service (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS). Cloud provides both horizontal and vertical scaling options

depending on the need.

Computing Power moving close to Data

The other important aspect we need to look at is the location and source of data. In the past,

data used to be brought closer to computing power. Situation is reversed now. While vast majority of

data required for Big Data Analytics used to reside on-premises earlier, the situation is changing very

fast with lot of data coming from social media, sensors & devices and with the advent of internet of

things and digital business. Now computing power is moving closer to data.

By factoring in all the above points, IT organizations are increasingly looking at cloud to support

their big data initiatives. Cloud gives scalable, elastic, flexible and cost effective options. Organizations

can provide Analytics-as-a-Service offerings in the area of big data analytics using cloud. As part of the

evolution, issues like security need to be sorted out.

Major cloud providers like IBM, Oracle, Rackspace, Microsoft, Amazon and Google etc have kick

started lot of big data cloud related initiatives. This will definitely increase the penetration/adoption and

these big players will be able to provide end to end solutions. Some companies are in the process of

coming up with end to end solutions in specific domains/industries. One such example is IBM Watson

Health. IBM is collaborating with Apple, Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic and acquiring Explorys, Phytel

etc to help optimize consumer and medical devices for data collection & analytics

Big Data, in fact, can become the cloud’s most favorite app or cloud can become the most

preferred platform for big data , says IBM’s James Kobielus. Reasons are obvious as explained above, i.e

the infrastructure flexibility and staying close to data.

Wikibon forecasts that big data related cloud services market can grow up to USD 5.69 billion by

2020.

Disclaimer

All the information provided above is based on my understanding of the subject/concept and

the information I have taken from different survey’s etc. (which were indicated above). Accuracy of the

information is based on the current understanding. As the time passes, some concepts may undergo

change or evolve further. If you find any incorrect information, please feel free to contact me or drop a

mail.