Why Learn Cloud Computing and Big Data ?

Today “Cloud computing” and "Big data" have become one of those buzzwords you hear everywhere whether you are a IT professional, a Faculty or a Student. So let's clear up what these buzzwords really mean and why to learn technologies associated with them in convergence.

The easiest definitions which I find quite simple and quick to grasp for any layman to expert are from Wikipedia. Let me take defination of Big Data from Wiki.

Wikipedia defines big data as, “Big data” is an term for any collection or grouping of data sets which are so large and complex that at some point of time it becomes difficult to process them using traditional data processing applications like RDBMS or single node sequential processing. The main hindrances in processing of Big data are its analysis, extraction, processing, searching, sharing, storage, transfer, visualization.

As far as what cloud computing is, I prefer the definition from IBM and it goes as:  “Cloud computing, often referred to as simply “the cloud,” is the delivery of on-demand computing resources—everything from applications to data centers—over the Internet on a pay-for-use basis. ”

Cloud computing is changing the IT industry, specifically the Infrastructure management service paradigm of IT industry. What cloud offers is flexibility , pay as you go model of pricing and elastic scalability with no upfront costs.

Thats why startups look at cloud computing similar to a farmer looking at monsoon clouds for rain in India.

But whats relation between Big Data and Cloud Computing ?

Recent developments lead to a notion “AaaS” , yes I am not wrong its “AaaS” (analytics as a service). Big data Analytics requires heavy investments in setting up required infrastructure for large Hadoop based Clusters and here comes cloud computing as a enabler technology for advanced analytics with big data.

There is very compelling reason to call cloud computing as enabler technology of big data analytics , because investments in big data analysis can be significant and make a clear case for a need for efficient, cost-effective infrastructure and thats what cloud computing provides by its service delivery model IaaS. Intel's IT center in its document titled “Big Data in the Cloud: Converging Technologies ” explains the convergence between Cloud Computing and Big Data elegantly.

If you take a look at the evolution of the cloud computing market, companies around the world are looking for more and more cloud computing experts, for private and public environments. This is a consequence of the fact that even more companies are switching from the classical server infrastructure to cloud solutions. Soon would be the scenario, where a shift from in house big data analytics to “AaaS” model will be quite evident.

Cloud Computing and Big Data Jobs Market is getting huge , in fact its already huge. Some of very high paying jobs are in Cloud computing and Big Data where the roles like Cloud Architect, Data Scientist are highly coveted.

Hope I answered the question “Why Learn Cloud Computing and Big Data ?”

Do let me know your opinion in comments :)