northscale

Big data in context

A few weeks back I attended venture firm Accel Partners' New Data Workshop event and learned quite a bit about the state of what we are now commonly referring to as "big data" and the challenges that await the vendors trying to target this new way of slicing and dicing vast amounts of information.

One of the big takeaways for me was the realization that even with all of the processing power available nowadays, the amount of data is growing at such a rapid pace that people are simply looking to cope with the problem, rather than facing it head on.

The issue of processing large amounts of data is not necessarily new--most developers and IT staff can tell you about having too much information to deal with--but, the big difference is that there are new approaches, tools and technologies that can help alleviate the difficult in processing.

Over the course of the last 30 years or so the way that machines process transactions has changed, but so too has the vast amount of data that is being processed and collected, now with an eye toward real-time analysis of information.

This has led to the advent of a number of technologies that allow for data processing to be offloaded and managed in both structured and unstructured ways--examples include open-source projects like Memcached and Hadoop as well as NoSQL data storage mechanisms like Cassandra.… Read more

When will cloud computing start raining cash?

Open-source cloud vendor Eucalyptus is rumored to be raising venture money at a $100 million valuation. Meanwhile, an Under The Radar conference dubbed "Commercializing the Cloud" is set for mid-April at which a host of new start-ups will talk about how they're set to shake the clouds free of billions of dollars in sales.

It can't come soon enough. For all the talk about cloud computing, the business of cloud computing is still in its infancy.

When will it grow up?

There's no shortage of exceptionally cool cloud technology. The most recent company to get … Read more