What do "Magic Elephants" have to do with Exploring Big Data Technologies? #HPESChat Recap

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HPES held the 2nd Big Data Twitter Chat on “Exploring Big Data Technologies” on July 17th. For a complete background check out the introductory blog: Tech That Big Data: HP Enterprise Services Twitter Chat, July 17th by Annabelle Baxter.  

Both the 1st Twitter Chat “Foundational Competencies for Big Data” and the 2nd Twitter Chat “Exploring Big Data Technologies” are summarized in the storify: Is Big Data the Big Daddy of IT Issues? The blog highlights the participants and some of content from the twitter chat.

It was an informative 1 hour of great dialog and questions including “Magic Elephants”(thank you for joining us @ocdqblog) , “Magic 8-balls” and Christmas presents J Annabelle Baxter @Annabelletx moderated the twitterchat and facilitated the conversation.  I have highlighted the 6 primary questions and just a few tweets for each question.  For a larger sampling please check out the Big Data Storify. 

Here are the tweets themselves to introduce the key HPES participants:

1. Good day - Jeff Edlund, CTO Communications Media & Entertainment - @Jedlundhp
2. Hi my name is Alex Gurevich and I’m a senior principal solution architect for #HP Information Management and Analytics group 
3. Good Afternoon - I am Rick LaCoume from the ITO Storage Product Marketing Team 
4. Philip Russom of TDWI here. All systems go. Bring on the #BigData chat. #TDWI 
5. Hello -- this is Randy Cairns from Autonomy corporate marketing 
6. Hi all - this is Irshad Raihan from ESSN Marketing for BI and Big Data Solutions 
7. Hello, this is Nadhan from HP Enterprise Services,
8. Kelly Kasher, Product Marketing, HP Information Management and Analytics 

1)    How does big data impact information architecture?

• #DataWarehouse architectures recently adopted to#RealTime & #Analytics. Will adapt again to #BigData,#Hadoop, #MapReduce / #TDWI
• To start It’s key to understand the business use cases that various components of your architecture need to support
• #BigData challenges the traditional notion that data has to be structured *before* it can be used

2)    What business & IT considerations drive architectural decisions for big data?

• Cost–unfortunately the first, &often misleading driver typically addresses short-term financial goals & limitations. #
• I think one of the key considerations for architectural decisions is understanding what #BigData already exists in IT
• Big consideration for #BigData platform: will it be dept solution (like #Analytics) or ent infrastructure (like storage)? #TDWI 

3)    What are some Big Data technologies you hear about today?

• Hadoop, SAP HANA, Vertica, Autonomy  
• Next generation of low cost scalable and fast processing data solutions that can handle the 3VC dimensions of Big Data
• I hear about many new #MapReduce apps, not all on#Hadoop. Remember: #MapReduce doesn’t require#HDFS. Seeing more R. / #TDWI 

4)    What are the criteria for determining the top technologies?

• The criteria needs to support the business problem and the technology needs to address the fundmental 3 V's criteria #
• Key criteria for evaluating #BigData technology is realize there's no "Magic Elephants" (If you want to know what Magic Elephants means go to the Storify)
• Start with the business need – what are you trying to accomplish for the business? 

5)    What are the biggest challenges / evolving solutions for Big Data Integration?

• begins with a unified info. strategy, which many companies lack.
• Biggest challenge isn't technology, we have that, the real challenge is executive level support to implement new solutions
• Biggest #BigData challenges: real time (events, streams), diverse data types, high performance with query and #Analytics / #TDWI

6)    How does this Big Data world impact current workforce / skills required?

• Speakers at recent #TDWI summit said few skills for#BigData & #DataScience out there. Career op for some, lost biz op for others.
• @annabelletx I have been thinking about manufacturing a #DataScience version of the Magic 8-Ball
• Future IT depts. will have technologists + those peaked on human sciences + business. #hpeschat@hpenterprise20_20

If you joined us on the Twitter Chat – Thank you! If not, hope you enjoyed the summary and we look forward to “chatting” with you soon! Watch for announcements of our next #HPESChat. What would you like to chat about?