Big Data, the Second Generation

§We are fast entering the second generation of big data: namely, big data that is accessible to nearly all organizations, as opposed to a few big companies.§§The first generation of big data was driven and dominated by Internet-based giants such as Google and Amazon. In the second generation, big data technologies have evolved to the critical point that they are viable, affordable, and competitively necessary for nearly all companies, regardless of size and industry. Big Data, the Second Generation gives business professionals the technological grounding and analytic tools they need to identify and plan out the big data strategy most appropriate to their particular company. This book systematically maps the MapReduce and Apache Hadoop 2 ecosystems to the second-generation array of big data business applications, provides you the guidelines to match your company's profile with suitable applications, and shows you how to boost the power of your business analytics with new technologies for the compression, visualization, and actionable analysis of big data.§§The authors draw their insights into the second generation of big data from deep experience in industry as well as research. David Belanger is the co-leader of the IEEE Big Data Initiative and was previously the Chief Scientist of AT&T Labs. Rashmi Jain is her university's representative in the New Jersey Big Data Alliance and was previously an IT systems architect for Accenture.§Belanger and Jain walk you through the business applications of big data techniques for mining data produced by communication networks, social networks, and communities of interest. They examine the technologies and tools that are required to work at big data scale on the semi-structured and unstructured data of text analysis, speech recognition, video analysis, and machine learning. They consider the critical governance and security issues raised when an enterprise ventures into the big data space. They forecast the business value of emergent trends such as big-data-as-a-service open platforms. Finally, they present an action plan for executives and managers in companies large and small that will deliver maximum ROI from applying big data techniques to proprietary and public databases.§§A strategic planning guide rather than a technical implementation manual, Big Data, the Second Generation: Planning Your Big Data Strategy equips you to chart your organization's roadmap to harnessing big data and big analytics to beat your competition in the race to higher topline sales and a fatter bottom line.§