Do you have the tools in place to deal with big data?

One of the big trends in the tech industry that you'll no doubt have to deal with at some point is big data. With the amount of information generated by internet users growing at an exponential rate, you'll need some way to interpret this wealth of data and convert it into useful figures you can use to improve your business.

Growing trend

The importance of this was recently highlighted by Gartner, which predicted spending on such solutions is set to jump hugely in the coming years. As a result of this, it forecast demand for people with expertise in the area will lead to the creation of 4.4 million new jobs in managing big data by 2015. It has been stated by the company that this development should be one of the top priorities for the coming years, along with tools such as cloud computing and mobility. But this might present a big challenge to firms, as they'll have to move quickly to put in place the analytics tools necessary to make the most of the available information.

New solutions

One powerful solutions for firms is Hadoop. This is an open-source software framework created by the Apache Foundation and is used by many of the world's largest companies to extract value from their data. In the past, Linux-based servers have been the primary option for users looking to run Hadoop's range of tools, but this is set to change as Microsoft has recently announced new previews of Hadoop-compatible solutions for Windows Server 2012 and Windows Azure.

The firm explained big data should be able to offer answers to enterprises and not increase the complexity of their IT systems. Therefore, the organisation said: "Providing Hadoop compatibility on Windows Server and Azure dramatically lowers the barriers to setup and deployment and enables customers to pull insights from any data, any size, on-premises or in the cloud."
Therefore, even more companies may now be able to benefits from the insights that can be offered to them by big data, allowing them to figure out where they can make improvements to their business.