Big Data Beyond the Hype

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2 Big Data Beyond the Hype

3 About the Authors Paul Zikopoulos is the Vice President of Technical Professionals for IBM s Information Management division and leads its World-Wide Competitive Database and Big Data teams. Paul is an award-winning writer and speaker with more than 20 years of experience in information management and is seen as a global expert in Big Data and Analytic technologies. Independent groups often recognize Paul as a thought leader with nominations to SAP s Top 50 Big Data Twitter Influencers, Big Data Republic s Most Influential, Onalytica s Top 100, and Analytics Week s Thought Leader in Big Data and Analytics lists. Technopedia listed him a Big Data Expert to Follow, and he was consulted on the topic by the popular TV show 60 Minutes. Paul has written more than 350 magazine articles and 18 books, some of which include Hadoop for Dummies, Harness the Power of Big Data, Understanding Big Data, DB2 for Dummies, and more. Paul has earned an undergraduate degree in Economics and an MBA. In his spare time, he enjoys all sorts of sporting activities, including, apparently, hot yoga. Ultimately, Paul is trying to figure out the world according to Chloë his daughter. Follow him on Dirk deroos is IBM s World-Wide Technical Sales Leader for IBM s Big Data technologies. Dirk has spent the past four years helping customers build Big Data solutions featuring InfoSphere BigInsights for Hadoop and Apache Hadoop, along with other components in IBM s Big Data and Analytics platform. Dirk has co-authored three books on this subject area: Hadoop for Dummies, Harness the Power of Big Data, and Understanding Big Data. Dirk earned two degrees from the University of New Brunswick in Canada: a bachelor of computer science and a bachelor of arts (honors English). You can reach him on Christopher Bienko covers the Information Management Cloud Solutions portfolio for IBM s World-Wide Technical Sales organization. Over the better part of two years, Christopher has navigated the cloud computing domain, enabling IBM customers and sellers to stay abreast of these rapidly evolving technologies. Prior to this, Christopher was polishing off his freshly minted bachelor of computer science degree from Dalhousie University. Christopher also holds a bachelor of science degree from Dalhousie University, with a

4 double major in biology and English. You can follow his musings on and see the world through his lens at Rick Buglio has been at IBM for more than eight years and is currently a product manager responsible for managing IBM s InfoSphere Optim solutions, which are an integral part of IBM s InfoSphere lifecycle management portfolio. He specializes in Optim s Data Privacy and Test Data Management services, which are used extensively to build right-sized, privatized, and trusted nonproduction environments. Prior to joining the Optim team at IBM, he was a product manager for IBM s Data Studio solution and was instrumental in bringing the product to market. Rick has more than 35 years of experience in the information technology and commercial software industry across a vast number of roles as an application programmer, business analyst, database administrator, and consultant, and has spent the last 18 years as a product manager specializing in the design, management, and delivery of successful and effective database management solutions for numerous industry-leading database management software companies. Marc Andrews is an IBM Vice President who leads a worldwide team of industry consultants and solution architects who are helping organizations use increasing amounts of information and advanced analytics to develop industry-specific Big Data and Analytics solutions. Marc meets with business and technology leaders from multiple industries across the globe to share best practices and identify how they can take advantage of emerging Big Data and Analytics capabilities to drive new business value. Marc is a member of the IBM Industry Academy and has been involved in several multibillion-dollar acquisitions in the information management and analytics space. He has a bachelor of economics degree from the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania and holds three patents related to information integration. You can reach him at marc.andrews@us.ibm.com. About the Technical Editor Roman B. Melnyk is a senior member of the DB2 Information Development team. Roman edited DB with BLU Acceleration: New Dynamic In-Memory Analytics for the Era of Big Data; Harness the Power of Big Data: The IBM Big Data

5 Platform; Warp Speed, Time Travel, Big Data, and More: DB2 10 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows New Features; and Apache Derby: Off to the Races. Roman co-authored Hadoop for Dummies, DB2 Version 8: The Official Guide, DB2: The Complete Reference, DB2 Fundamentals Certification for Dummies, and DB2 for Dummies.

6 Big Data Beyond the Hype A Guide to Conversations for Today s Data Center Paul Zikopoulos Dirk deroos Christopher Bienko Rick Buglio Marc Andrews New York Chicago San Francisco Athens London Madrid Mexico City Milan New Delhi Singapore Sydney Toronto

7 Copyright 2015 by McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher, with the exception that the program listings may be entered, stored, and executed in a computer system, but they may not be reproduced for publication. ISBN: MHID: X The material in this ebook also appears in the print version of this title: ISBN: , MHID: ebook conversion by codemantra Version 1.0 All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners. Rather than put a trademark symbol after every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use names in an editorial fashion only, and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Where such designations appear in this book, they have been printed with initial caps. McGraw-Hill Education ebooks are available at special quantity discounts to use as premiums and sales promotions or for use in corporate training programs. To contact a representative, please visit the Contact Us page at The contents of this book represent those features that may or may not be available in the current release of any on premise or off premise products or services mentioned within this book despite what the book may say. IBM reserves the right to include or exclude any functionality mentioned in this book for the current or subsequent releases of any IBM cloud services or products mentioned in this book. Decisions to purchase any IBM software should not be made based on the features said to be available in this book. In addition, any performance claims made in this book aren t official communications by IBM; rather, they are the results observed by the authors in unaudited testing. The views expressed in this book are ultimately those of the authors and not necessarily those of IBM Corporation. Information has been obtained by McGraw-Hill Education from sources believed to be reliable. However, because of the possibility of human or mechanical error by our sources, McGraw-Hill Education, or others, McGraw-Hill Education does not guarantee the accuracy, adequacy, or completeness of any information and is not responsible for any errors or omissions or the results obtained from the use of such information. TERMS OF USE This is a copyrighted work and McGraw-Hill Education and its licensors reserve all rights in and to the work. Use of this work is subject to these terms. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act of 1976 and the right to store and retrieve one copy of the work, you may not decompile, disassemble, reverse engineer, reproduce, modify, create derivative works based upon, transmit, distribute, disseminate, sell, publish or sublicense the work or any part of it without McGraw-Hill Education s prior consent. You may use the work for your own noncommercial and personal use; any other use of the work is strictly prohibited. Your right to use the work may be terminated if you fail to comply with these terms. THE WORK IS PROVIDED AS IS. McGRAW-HILL EDUCATION AND ITS LICENSORS MAKE NO GUAR- ANTEES OR WARRANTIES AS TO THE ACCURACY, ADEQUACY OR COMPLETENESS OF OR RESULTS TO BE OBTAINED FROM USING THE WORK, INCLUDING ANY INFORMATION THAT CAN BE ACCESSED THROUGH THE WORK VIA HYPERLINK OR OTHERWISE, AND EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABIL- ITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. McGraw-Hill Education and its licensors do not warrant or guarantee that the functions contained in the work will meet your requirements or that its operation will be uninterrupted or error free. Neither McGraw-Hill Education nor its licensors shall be liable to you or anyone else for any inaccuracy, error or omission, regardless of cause, in the work or for any damages resulting therefrom. McGraw-Hill Education has no responsibility for the content of any information accessed through the work. Under no circumstances shall McGraw-Hill Education and/or its licensors be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, punitive, consequential or similar damages that result from the use of or inability to use the work, even if any of them has been advised of the possibility of such damages. This limitation of liability shall apply to any claim or cause whatsoever whether such claim or cause arises in contract, tort or otherwise.

8 Book number 19: One day I ll come to my senses. The time and energy needed to write a book in your spare time are daunting, but if the end result is the telling of a great story (in this case, the topic of Big Data in general and the IBM Big Data and Analytics platform), I feel that it is well worth the sacrifice. Speaking of sacrifice, it s not just the authors who pay a price to tell a story; it s also their loved ones, and I am lucky to have plenty of those people. My wife is unwavering in her support for my career and takes a backseat more often than not she s the behind-the-scenes person who makes it all work: Thank you. And my sparkling daughter, Chloë, sheer inspiration behind a simple smile, who so empowers me with endless energy and excitement each and every day. Over the course of the summer, we started to talk about Hadoop. She hears so much about it and wanted to know what it is. We discussed massively parallel processing (MPP), and I gave her a challenge: Create for me an idea how MPP could help in a kid s world. After some thought, she brought a grass rake with marshmallows on each tine, put it on the BBQ, and asked Is this MPP, BigDaDa? in her witty voice. That s an example of the sparkling energy I m talking about. I love you for this, Chloë and for so much more. I want to thank all the IBMers who I interact with daily in my quest for knowledge. I m not born with it, I learn it and from some of the most talented people in the world IBMers. Finally, to Debbie Smith, Kelly McCoy, Brad Strickert, Brant Hurren, Lindsay Hogg, Brittany Fletcher, and the rest of the Canada Power Yoga crew in Oshawa: In the half-year leading up to this book, I badly injured my back twice. I don t have the words to describe the frustration and despair and how my life had taken a wrong turn. After meeting Debbie and her crew, I found that, indeed, my life had taken a turn but in the opposite direction from what I had originally thought. Thanks to this studio for teaching me a new practice, for your caring and your acceptance, and for restoring me to a place of well-being (at least until Chloë is a teenager). Namaste. Paul Zikopoulos

9 To Sandra, Erik, and Anna: Yet again, I ve taken on a book project, and yet again, you ve given me the support that I ve needed. Dirk deroos To my family and friends who patiently put up with the late nights, short weekends, and the long hours it takes to be a part of this incredible team: Thank you. I would also like to thank those who first domesticated Coffee arabica for making the aforementioned possible. Christopher Bienko I would like to thank my immediate family for supporting my contribution to this book by putting up with my early and late hours and, at times, my stressed-out attitude. I especially want to thank my wife, Lyndy, my in-house English major, who helped edit and proofread my first draft and this dedication. I would also like to thank Paul Zikopoulos for providing me with the opportunity to be part of this book, even though there were times when I thought I was crazy for volunteering. Finally, I would like to thank my entire Optim extended family for having my back at work and for allowing me to go stealth as needed so that I could focus on making this project a reality. Rick Buglio I would like to thank all of our clients for taking the time to tell us about their challenges and giving us the opportunity to demonstrate how we can help them. I would also like to thank the entire IBM Big Data Industry Team for their continued motivation and passion working with our clients to understand their business needs and helping them to find ways of delivering new value through information and analytics. By listening to our clients and sharing their experiences, we are able to continuously learn new ways to help transform industries and businesses with data. And thank you to my family, Amy, Ayla, and Ethan, for their patience and support even when I am constantly away from home to spend time with companies across the world in my personal pursuit to make an impact. Marc Andrews

10 CONTENTS AT A GLANCE PART I Opening Conversations About Big Data 1 Getting Hype out of the Way: Big Data and Beyond To SQL or Not to SQL: That s Not the Question, It s the Era of Polyglot Persistence Composing Cloud Applications: Why We Love the Bluemix and the IBM Cloud The Data Zones Model: A New Approach to Managing Data PART II Watson Foundations 5 Starting Out with a Solid Base: A Tour of Watson Foundations Landing Your Data in Style with Blue Suit Hadoop: InfoSphere BigInsights In the Moment Analytics: InfoSphere Streams Million Times Faster Than the Blink of an Eye: BLU Acceleration An Expert Integrated System for Deep Analytics Build More, Grow More, Sleep More: IBM Cloudant ix

11 PART III Calming the Waters: Big Data Governance 11 Guiding Principles for Data Governance Security Is NOT an Afterthought Big Data Lifecycle Management Matching at Scale: Big Match

12 CONTENTS Foreword.... Acknowledgments... Introduction... xix xxi xxiii PART I Opening Conversations About Big Data 1 Getting Hype out of the Way: Big Data and Beyond... 3 There s Gold in Them There Hills!... 3 Why Is Big Data Important?... 5 Brought to You by the Letter V: How We Define Big Data... 8 Cognitive Computing Why Does the Big Data World Need Cognitive Computing? A Big Data and Analytics Platform Manifesto Discover, Explore, and Navigate Big Data Sources Land, Manage, and Store Huge Volumes of Any Data Structured and Controlled Data Manage and Analyze Unstructured Data Analyze Data in Real Time A Rich Library of Analytical Functions and Tools Integrate and Govern All Data Sources Cognitive Computing Systems Of Cloud and Manifestos Wrapping It Up To SQL or Not to SQL: That s Not the Question, It s the Era of Polyglot Persistence Core Value Systems: What Makes a NoSQL Practitioner Tick What Is NoSQL? Is Hadoop a NoSQL Database? xi

13 xii Contents Different Strokes for Different Folks: The NoSQL Classification System Give Me a Key, I ll Give You a Value: The Key/Value Store The Grand-Daddy of Them All: The Document Store Column Family, Columnar Store, or BigTable Derivatives: What Do We Call You? Don t Underestimate the Underdog: The Graph Store From ACID to CAP CAP Theorem and a Meatloaf Song: Two Out of Three Ain t Bad Let Me Get This Straight: There Is SQL, NoSQL, and Now NewSQL? Wrapping It Up Composing Cloud Applications: Why We Love the Bluemix and the IBM Cloud At Your Service: Explaining Cloud Provisioning Models Setting a Foundation for the Cloud: Infrastructure as a Service IaaS for Tomorrow Available Today: IBM SoftLayer Powers the IBM Cloud Noisy Neighbors Can Be Bad Neighbors: The Multitenant Cloud Building the Developer s Sandbox with Platform as a Service If You Have Only a Couple of Minutes: PaaS and IBM Bluemix in a Nutshell Digging Deeper into PaaS Being Social on the Cloud: How Bluemix Integrates Platforms and Architectures Understanding the Hybrid Cloud: Playing Frankenstein Without the Horror Tried and Tested: How Deployable Patterns Simplify PaaS Composing the Fabric of Cloud Services: IBM Bluemix Parting Words on Platform as a Service Consuming Functionality Without the Stress: Software as a Service The Cloud Bazaar: SaaS and the API Economy Demolishing the Barrier to Entry for Cloud-Ready Analytics: IBM s dashdb... 89

14 Contents xiii Build More, Grow More, Know More: dashdb s Cloud SaaS Refinery as a Service Wrapping It Up The Data Zones Model: A New Approach to Managing Data Challenges with the Traditional Approach Agility Cost Depth of Insight Next-Generation Information Management Architectures Prepare for Touchdown: The Landing Zone Into the Unknown: The Exploration Zone Into the Deep: The Deep Analytic Zone Curtain Call: The New Staging Zone You Have Questions? We Have Answers! The Queryable Archive Zone In Big Data We Trust: The Trusted Data Zone A Zone for Business Reporting From Forecast to Nowcast: The Real-Time Processing and Analytics Zone Ladies and Gentlemen, Presenting The Data Zones Model PART II Watson Foundations 5 Starting Out with a Solid Base: A Tour of Watson Foundations Overview of Watson Foundations A Continuum of Analytics Capabilities: Foundations for Watson Landing Your Data in Style with Blue Suit Hadoop: InfoSphere BigInsights Where Do Elephants Come From: What Is Hadoop? A Brief History of Hadoop Components of Hadoop and Related Projects Open Source and Proud of It Making Analytics on Hadoop Easy

15 xiv Contents The Real Deal for SQL on Hadoop: Big SQL Machine Learning for the Masses: Big R and SystemML The Advanced Text Analytics Toolkit Data Discovery and Visualization: BigSheets Spatiotemporal Analytics Finding Needles in Haystacks of Needles: Indexing and Search in BigInsights Cradle-to-Grave Application Development Support The BigInsights Integrated Development Environment The BigInsights Application Lifecycle An App Store for Hadoop: Easy Deployment and Execution of Custom Applications Keeping the Sandbox Tidy: Sharing and Managing Hadoop The BigInsights Web Console Monitoring the Aspects of Your Cluster Securing the BigInsights for Hadoop Cluster Adaptive MapReduce A Flexible File System for Hadoop: GPFS-FPO Playing Nice: Integration with Other Data Center Systems IBM InfoSphere System z Connector for Hadoop IBM PureData System for Analytics InfoSphere Streams for Data in Motion InfoSphere Information Server for Data Integration Matching at Scale with Big Match Securing Hadoop with Guardium and Optim Broad Integration Support Deployment Flexibility BigInsights Editions: Free, Low-Cost, and Premium Offerings A Low-Cost Way to Get Started: Running BigInsights on the Cloud Higher-Class Hardware: Power and System z Support

16 Contents xv Get Started Quickly! Wrapping It Up In the Moment Analytics: InfoSphere Streams Introducing Streaming Data Analysis How InfoSphere Streams Works A Simple Streams Application Recommended Uses for Streams How Is Streams Different from CEP Systems? Stream Processing Modes: Preserve Currency or Preserve Each Record High Availability Dynamically Distributed Processing InfoSphere Streams Platform Components The Streams Console An Integrated Development Environment for Streams: Streams Studio The Streams Processing Language Source and Sink Adapters Analytical Operators Streams Toolkits Solution Accelerators Use Cases Get Started Quickly! Wrapping It Up Million Times Faster Than the Blink of an Eye: BLU Acceleration What Is BLU Acceleration? What Does a Next Generation Database Service for Analytics Look Like? Seamlessly Integrated Hardware Optimized Convince Me to Take BLU Acceleration for a Test Drive Pedal to the Floor: How Fast Is BLU Acceleration? From Minimized to Minuscule: BLU Acceleration Compression Ratios Where Will I Use BLU Acceleration?

17 xvi Contents How BLU Acceleration Came to Be: Seven Big Ideas Big Idea #1: KISS It! Big Idea #2: Actionable Compression and Computer-Friendly Encoding Big Idea #3: Multiplying the Power of the CPU Big Idea #4: Parallel Vector Processing Big Idea #5: Get Organized by Column Big Idea #6: Dynamic In-Memory Processing Big Idea #7: Data Skipping How Seven Big Ideas Optimize the Hardware Stack The Sum of All Big Ideas: BLU Acceleration in Action DB2 with BLU Acceleration Shadow Tables: When OLTP + OLAP = 1 DB What Lurks in These Shadows Isn t Anything to Be Scared of: Operational Reporting Wrapping It Up An Expert Integrated System for Deep Analytics Before We Begin: Bursting into the Cloud Starting on the Whiteboard: Netezza s Design Principles Appliance Simplicity: Minimize the Human Effort Process Analytics Closer to the Data Store Balanced + MPP = Linear Scalability Modular Design: Support Flexible Configurations and Extreme Scalability What s in the Box? The Netezza Appliance Architecture Overview A Look Inside a Netezza Box How a Query Runs in Netezza How Netezza Is a Platform for Analytics Wrapping It Up Build More, Grow More, Sleep More: IBM Cloudant Cloudant: White Glove Database as a Service Where Did Cloudant Roll in From? Cloudant or Hadoop? Being Flexible: Schemas with JSON Cloudant Clustering: Scaling for the Cloud

18 Contents xvii Avoiding Mongo-Size Outages: Sleep Soundly with Cloudant Replication Cloudant Sync Brings Data to a Mobile World Make Data, Not War: Cloudant Versioning and Conflict Resolution Unlocking GIS Data with Cloudant Geospatial Cloudant Local Here on In: For Techies For Techies: Leveraging the Cloudant Primary Index Exploring Data with Cloudant s Secondary Index Views Performing Ad Hoc Queries with the Cloudant Search Index Parameters That Govern a Logical Cloudant Database Remember! Cloudant Is DBaaS Wrapping It Up PART III Calming the Waters: Big Data Governance 11 Guiding Principles for Data Governance The IBM Data Governance Council Maturity Model Wrapping It Up Security Is NOT an Afterthought Security Big Data: How It s Different Securing Big Data in Hadoop Culture, Definition, Charter, Foundation, and Data Governance What Is Sensitive Data? The Masquerade Gala: Masking Sensitive Data Don t Break the DAM: Monitoring and Controlling Access to Data Protecting Data at Rest Wrapping It Up Big Data Lifecycle Management A Foundation for Data Governance: The Information Governance Catalog Data on Demand: Data Click

19 xviii Contents Data Integration Data Quality Veracity as a Service: IBM DataWorks Managing Your Test Data: Optim Test Data Management A Retirement Home for Your Data: Optim Data Archive Wrapping It Up Matching at Scale: Big Match What Is Matching Anyway? A Teaser: Where Are You Going to Use Big Match? Matching on Hadoop Matching Approaches Big Match Architecture Big Match Algorithm Configuration Files Big Match Applications HBase Tables Probabilistic Matching Engine How It Works Extract Search Applications for Big Match Enabling the Landing Zone Enhanced 360-Degree View of Your Customers More Reliable Data Exploration Large-Scale Searches for Matching Records Wrapping It Up

20 FOREWORD Through thousands of client engagements, we ve learned organizations that outperform are using data for competitive advantage. What sets these leaders apart? It s their ability to get three things right. First, they drive business outcomes by applying more sophisticated analytics across more disparate data sources in more parts of their organization they infuse analytics everywhere. Second, they capture the time value of data by developing speed of insight and speed of action as core differentiators they don t wait. Third, they look to change the game in their industry or profession they shift the status quo. These game changers could be in how they apply Big Data and Analytics to attract, grow, and retain customers; manage risk or transform financial processes; optimize operations; or indeed create new business models. At their very core, they directly or indirectly seek to capitalize on the value of information. If you selected this book, you likely play a key role in the transformation of your organization through Big Data and Analytics. You are tired of the hype and are ready to have a conversation about seizing the value of data. This book provides a practical introduction to the next generation of data architectures; introduces the role of the cloud and NoSQL technologies; and discusses the practicalities of security, privacy, and governance. Whether you are new to this topic or an expert looking for the latest information, this book provides a solid foundation on which to grow. Our writers are accomplished scientists, developers, architects, and mathematicians. They are passionate about helping our clients turn hype into reality. They understand the complexities of rapidly shifting technology and the practicalities of evolving and expanding a data architecture already in place. They have worked side-by-side with clients to help them transform their organization while keeping them on a winning path. I d like to acknowledge Paul, Dirk, Chris, Rick, and Marc for sharing their deep knowledge of this complex topic in a style that makes it accessible to all of us ready to seize our moment on this Big Data journey. Beth Smith General Manager, IBM Information Management xix

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22 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Collectively, we want to thank the following people, without whom this book would not have been possible: Anjul Bhambhri, Rob Thomas, Roger Rea, Steven Sit, Rob Utzschneider, Joe DiPietro, Nagui Halim, Shivakumar Vaithyanathan, Shankar Venkataraman, Dwaine Snow, Andrew Buckler, Glen Sheffield, Klaus Roder, Ritika Gunnar, Tim Vincent, Jennifer McGinn, Anand Ranganathan, Jennifer Chen, and Robert Uleman. Thanks also to all the other people in our business who make personal sacrifices day in and day out to bring you the IBM Big Data and Analytics platform. IBM is an amazing place to work and is unparalleled when you get to work beside this kind of brain power every day. Roman Melnyk, our technical editor, has been working with us for a long time sometimes as a coauthor, sometimes as an editor, but always as an integral part of the project. We also want to thank Xiamei (May) Li who bailed us out on Chapter 14 and brought some common sense to our Big Match chapter. Bob Harbus helped us a lot with Chapter 8 the shadow tables technology and we wanted to thank him here too. We want to thank (although at times we cursed) Susan Visser, Frances Wells, Melissa Reilly, and Linda Currie for getting the book in place; an idea is an idea, but it takes people like this to help get that idea up and running. Our editing team Janet Walden, Kim Wimpsett, and Lisa McCoy all played a key role behind the scenes, and we want to extend our thanks for that. It s also hard not to give a special sentence of thanks to Hardik Popli at Cenveo Publisher Services the guy s personal effort to perfection is beyond apparent. Finally, to our McGraw-Hill guru, Paul Carlstroem there is a reason why we specifically want to work with you you did more magic for this book than any other before it thank you. xxi

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24 INTRODUCTION The poet A.R. Ammons once wrote, A word too much repeated falls out of being. Well, kudos to the term Big Data, because it s hanging in there, and it s hard to imagine a term with more hype than Big Data. Indeed, perhaps it is repeated too much. Big Data Beyond the Hype: A Guide to Conversations for Today s Data Center is a collection of discussions that take an overused term and break it down into a confluence of technologies, some that have been around for a while, some that are relatively new, and others that are just coming down the pipe or are not even a market reality yet. The book is organized into three parts. Part I, Opening Conversations About Big Data, gives you a framework so that you can engage in Big Data conversations in social forums, at keynotes, in architectural reviews, during marketing mix planning, at the office watercooler, or even with your spouse (nothing like a Big Data discussion to inject romance into an evening). Although we talk a bit about what IBM does in this space, the aim of this part is to give you a grounding in cloud service delivery models, NoSQL, Big Data, cognitive computing, what a modern data information architecture looks like, and more. This chapter is going to give you the constructs and foundations that you will need to engage conversation that indeed can hype Big Data, but allow you to extend those conversations beyond. In Chapter 1, we briefly tackle, define, and illustrate the term Big Data. Although its use is ubiquitous, we think that many people have used it irresponsibly. For example, some people think Big Data just means Hadoop and although Hadoop is indeed a critical repository and execution engine in the Big Data world, Hadoop is not solely Big Data. In fact, without analytics, Big Data is, well, just a bunch of data. Others think Big Data just means more data, and although that could be a characteristic, you certainly can engage in Big Data without lots of data. Big Data certainly doesn t replace the RDBMS either, and admittedly we do find it ironic that the biggest trend in the NoSQL world is SQL. We also included in this chapter a discussion of cognitive computing the next epoch of data analytics. IBM Watson represents a whole new class of industry-specific solutions called Cognitive Systems. It builds upon but is xxiii