Category Archives: Data Lake

Free Business Analytics Content –Thanks to Wikipedia – Part 1

05 Sat Mar 2016

Posted by in All Data, Analytics, Big Data, Big Data 7s, Big Data Analytics, dark data, data architecture, Data governance, Data Lake, data management, data science, Data Supply Framework, Data Warehouse, Data Warehousing, Inform, educate and entertain., pig data, statistics, The Amazing Big Data Challenge, The Big Data Contrarians

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Image2Why buy when you can get it for free?

Here is the first fantastic delivery of an amazing and fabulous selection of free and widely available business analytics learning content, which has been prepared… just for you. Continue reading →

Testing the Data Warehouse

05 Sat Mar 2016

Posted by in All Data, Ask Martyn, Big Data, Big Data 7s, Big Data Analytics, business strategy, dark data, data architecture, Data governance, Data Lake, data management, data science, Data Supply Framework, Data Warehouse, Data Warehousing, Good Strat, Good Strategy, goodstrat, Inform, educate and entertain., IT strategy, Martyn does, Martyn Jones, Martyn Richard Jones, pig data, Strategy, The Amazing Big Data Challenge, The Big Data Contrarians

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Image1Martyn Richard Jones

Dusseldorf, August 2006

Data Warehousing provides possibly one of the best opportunities for IT organizations to deliver a valuable business solution in order to address a set of business needs; requirements that go well beyond the area of day to day operational support, and traditional applications (web enabled or not), and when Data Warehousing is done the right way, and for the right reasons, its payback to all of its stakeholders can be positively significant. Continue reading →

How Hadoop Revolutionised IT

05 Sat Mar 2016

Posted by in All Data, Ask Martyn, Big Data, Big Data 7s, Big Data Analytics, dark data, data architecture, Data governance, Data Lake, data management, data science, Data Supply Framework, Data Warehouse, Data Warehousing, hadoop, Inform, educate and entertain., Marty does, Martyn does, Martyn Jones, Martyn Richard Jones, pig data, The Amazing Big Data Challenge, The Big Data Contrarians

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This is the story of how the amazing Hadoop ecosphere revolutionised IT. If you enjoy it, then consider joining The Big Data Contrarians.

Before the advent of Hadoop and its ecosphere, IT was a desperate wasteland of failed opportunities, archaic technology and broken promises.

In the dark Cambrian days of bits, mercury delay lines and ferrite cores, we knew nothing about digital. The age of big iron did little to change matters, and vendors made enormous profits selling systems that nobody could use and even fewer people could understand. Continue reading →

In the Beginning was the Big Data Plan

23 Tue Feb 2016

Posted by in Big Data, Big Data 7s, Big Data Analytics, Data governance, Data Lake, data science, Data Warehouse, Dogma, DW 3.0, Inform, educate and entertain., Information Management, Information Supply Frameowrk, Infotrends, Inmon, sentiment analysis

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In the beginning was the Big Iron, the Big Data, and the Big Data Plan.

And then came the Big Data Assumptions.

And the Big Data Assumptions were without form.

And the Big Data Plan was without substance.

And the Big Iron was without movement.

And the Big Data was without velocity, variety and volume.

And darkness was upon the face of the data workers.

And they spoke amongst themselves, saying: “Big Data, is a crock of shit, and it stinketh mucho”.

And the data workers went unto their Data Supervisors and said: “This here Big Data is a pile of putrid crappy keech”, for they were from Govan, and continued, “and none may abide the odour thereof”.

And the Data Supervisors went unto their Information Managers, saying: “Big Data is a container of excrement, and it is very strong, such that none may abide by it.”

And the Information Managers went unto their Business Directors, saying: “This here Big Data doodoo is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide its strength.”

And the Business Directors spoke amongst themselves, saying to one another: “Big Data contains that which aids plant growth, and it is very powerful.”

And the Vice Presidents went unto the President, saying unto him: “This new Big Data will actively promote the growth and vigour of the company, with powerful effects.”

And the President looked upon the Big Iron, the Big Data and the Big Data Plan, and saw that they were good.

Many thanks for reading

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Big Data, a promised land where the Big Bucks grow

11 Wed Nov 2015

Posted by in Big Data, Data Lake, data science, Martyn Jones, Martyn Richard Jones

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Consider this: Many people come up to me in the street, and, apropos of nothing, they ask me how they can make money from Big Data.

Normally I would send such people to see a specialist – no, not a guru, but a sort of health specialist, but because this has happened to me so many times now, I eventually decided to put pen to paper, push the envelope, open up the kimono, and to record my advice for posterity and the great grandchildren.

So, here are my top seven tips for cashing in quick on the new big thing on the block.

1 – A business opportunity for faith

Like every new religion, trend or fad, Big Data has its own founding myths, theology and liturgy, and there is money to be made in it; loadsa lovely jubbly money. By predicating and evangelising Big Data you will be welcomed with open arms into the Big Data faith, and will receive all the attendant benefits that will miraculously and mysteriously fall upon you and your devout friends. Go on, I dare you. Be a Big Data guru, a shepherd to a flock of sheep, and enjoy the wealth, health and happiness that most surely will come your way. You too can look cool in red Prada slippers, a flattering and flowing gown and matching accessories.

2 – Acquire it, multiply it, weigh it, mark it up and sell it on

Simply stated, this is about acquiring other people’s data, by sacred means or profane, marking it up and then selling it on. The value you add is that you act as a trusted conduit, a conduit for good. You may care to enrich the data, swop the order of data, replicate and embellish data, make stuff up, etc. which all serves to ‘add value’ to the data. You may even consider adding nuggets of value to the data, just for kicks and giggles. My best friend’s favourite is injecting the good old ‘diaper and beer’ and ‘friends and family’ clichés into every Big Data collection, as it never fails to thrill, please and delight.

3 – Anything can be anything

The good thing about making money from Big Data is that it doesn’t need to be anything to do with Big Data. Make a 20GB Enterprise Data Warehouse? Call it a Big Data success. Sell 20 boxes of dodgy doughnuts down the alternative market? Proclaim a Big Data triumph. Sell your digital porn stash to your best mate? Point to the incredible invisible hand of the Big Data market at work. See what I’m doing there. Anything can be anything, and you too can cash in on that opportunity, big time.

4 – Big Data Patronage

Tense, nervous headaches? Do you like making up stories about Big Data, or for that matter anything else? Are you a natural born fibber but are strapped for cash? Then worry no longer. If you get a Big Data patron you will be sorted for ‘life’; get two and you’ll be sorted for the afterlife as well. With a Big Data patron you can get the most tenuous, crappiest and superficial of pieces published, promoted and vaunted – globally. Can’t make it up yourself, then outsource and offshore it, after all, just get the keywords right for SEO ranking and the gullible will flock to you in droves. The down side of this profession is that you will be targeted for writing half-truths, quarter-truths and downright lies, and you will be pilloried as a purveyor of rank hyperbole. But don’t worry, take heart and never lose the faith, you will be in good company. As one Big Data guru was want to say ” If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.” Amen! brother.

5 – Big Data Certification

By 2016 there will be global demand for 30 billion Big Data professionals. Are you prepared to cash in on that inevitability? No? Then consider this.

One of my best friends makes his living as a completely phony Big Data Scientist. For two hundred bucks he can make you a Data Scientist or a Big Data guru. Some guys give you an education but this guy gives you immediate access to high paying jobs, sex and a life in the city. Moreover, for an extra 250 bucks you can also become a certified Big Data Trainer, which will allow you to do unto others what has been done unto you.

6 – Creative Technology Reuse

Big Data has heralded in the biggest innovations known in the history of computing, and arguably in the entire history of humankind. One of those new inventions has been the now widely acclaimed and revolutionary ‘flat file data base’ (FFDB), and this has been accompanied with developments in low level operating system primitives that allow for the processing of these collections and hierarchies of FFDBs. So, if one has a mind to do so, one can get some real business leverage off of these new tendencies by borrowing 21st century technology found in old operating system hacks from the sixties and seventies and eighties and nineties and… Well, the point is that in order to get serious funding it is no longer good enough to have a half page business plan, it is also necessary to eke out ‘stuff’ that works within the new paradigms of Big Data and Big Data Analytics. For my next venture I will be looking for serious funding for my ‘Arbitrary Dawdle Down Data Street’ (AD3S) Big Data Analytics platform, a platform designed to support virtual 1k bit processing and the massively parallel provision of global regular expression search and match (S&M), concatenation and listing, and cooperative data-driven and streamed data extraction and reporting. I’m hoping to attract the attention of governments, the EU, the Manic Street Preachers, the UN, China, Vladimir Putin, the DOD, HP, Oracle, Gartner, Lana Del Rey, Deloitte and IBM. So, this is going to be absolutely massive. Word!

7 – Big Data Brokerage

According to leading management consultants and industry watchers Gartner, McKinsey and Deloitte, data needs to be managed and accounted like any other asset, such as money. To get into a similar view-point requires a massive leap of faith, but it is a conversion that might drive dividends. One avenue to be explored in eking out value from the apparently massively valuable Big Data lakes, silos and pools is through the operation of a Big Data Brokerage. A Big Data Brokerage is a business whose main responsibility is to be an intermediary that puts Big Data buyers and Big Data sellers together in order to facilitate a transaction. Big Data Brokerage companies are compensated via commission after the Big Data transaction has been successfully completed. They may also charge introductory fees. Just imagine the wealth of business opportunities in that. You could become the Goldman Sachs of data.

That’s it folks!

I hope you enjoyed this piece and would be pleased to hear your views on this and other subjects.

Whilst I understand the attraction and even the need of creating a new and significant growth industry, I would also advise a degree of restraint, and whilst I see that “Big Data” (the consideration of the potential value of All Data) has its allure, I also think that some good sense and informed caution should also prevail.

Thank you so much for reading.

Martyn Richard Jones

Spain, 2015

The Big Data Shell Game

11 Wed Nov 2015

Posted by in All Data, Big Data, Cloud, Data Lake, data science, Inform, educate and entertain., IoT, Martyn Jones

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To the experienced observer, Big Data propaganda may well appear to be a disorganised surfeit of half-truths, sleights of hand and boloney. Indeed, the once famously alliterative characterisation of Big Data as defined by volumes, variety and velocity, seems now more appropriately applied to the quantity, invariability and quality of the incessant self-aggrandising hype, hokum and Hadoop being astro-turfed by every dog and his guru. Indeed, the very fact that such an inevitable mega-trend needs so much hype, disingenuousness and spin to support its passage to universal applicability, is a massive contradiction, a disservice to professionals, and an artless deception worthy of our criticism and condemnation. Continue reading →

Big Data is Bullshit

11 Wed Nov 2015

Posted by in All Data, Analytics, Big Data, Data Lake, Inform, educate and entertain., Martyn Jones

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“I’ve been accused of vulgarity. I say that’s bullshit.” – Mel Brooks

If you enjoy this piece or find it useful then please consider joining The Big Data Contrarians:

Join The Big Data Contrarians here: https://www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=8338976

Being brutally honest, Big Data is bullshit. Not only is Big Data bullshit but it comes with a surfeit of pranksters, pundits and prissy big data bullshit-babblers, all willing (cue narration by Morgan Freeman) to “big-up Big Data in a vulgar, ill-mannered and predictably nauseating dance of professional-hustling… as old as time.”

However, is all Big Data bullshit? Is it all a fad, a load of old tripe and a confusion of weasels together with their surfeit of weasel words? Or, is there something of value, substance and tangibility to be found amongst the volumes, velocities and varieties of brazen and opportunistic self-aggrandizement, toxic speculation and opinions and unverifiable miracles?

For Google, Facebook and Twitter, Big Data certainly isn’t BS. For example, Google rely on Big Data as the biggest irreplaceable element in their colossal advertising business – so I am lead to believe. A business that accounts for more than 90% of Google’s revenue. So clearly, for the masters of web-based unstructured and complex search, Big Data is an essential element in their business model. The biggest essential element by far.

However, let´s be honest, we should consider the obvious. How many of us are really going to do business like Google?

Big Data technology and service vendors benefit tangibly from the Big Data movement, at least this is the impression that I get. Indeed, there is much talk about the relationship between Big Data, the Hadoop ecosphere and the big wild world of open source, but what is more interesting is that companies are bringing in revenue on the back of Big Data by offering battle-hardened business and enterprise versions of open source software. Then there is the business in consulting, with such a demand for Big Data gurus, Master Data Scientists and Number Conjurors, there must presumably be real people working in these roles, and paid handsomely for doing so.

But apart from the ‘success’ associated with the foundation of so many Big Data start-up businesses and the market-based commitment of some of ITs’ ‘great and good’ to the new digital zeitgeist of data volumes, velocities and varieties, just where are the other success stories of Big Data coming from?

To help us in our quest, I earlier compiled a not-so-exhaustive list of Big Data success stories, celebrity-chef like, to help us out. Here are some of the Big Data gems that I managed to track down:

  • Thanks to Big Data, the taxi service alternative channel Uber is making massive waves and shaking things up in the transport sector.
  • By leveraging Big Data AirBnB is turning the hospitality business on its head, and what´s more, making friends, and influencing people as they are doing so.
  • Amazon would not be what they are today if it were not for Big Data, in fact, without Big Data, they would be nothing.
  • One of the industries that will suffer revolutionary transformation because of Big Data will be the banking industry.
  • Big Data will increase the GDP of the USA by at least 1% or more, and the Spanish GDP could likewise add an additional 1%, for similar reasons.

These would be all great headlines for Big Data success stories, apart from one small flaw. None of them is exactly a Big Data success story in the Big Data defining characteristics of volumes, varieties and velocities of mainly unstructured data or in terms of the Hadoop technological kitchen-drawer ecosphere.

Something is happening, and it is not exactly legitimate. Can you guess what it is yet?

When it rains it pours, and when it rains Big Data hype it quickly turn into a monsoon of cloying hysteria. Spotting and pointing at Big Data bullshit babblers on forums like LinkedIn Pulse, Forbes and Information Management is no fun, unless your fun is nuking a school of intellectually challenged fish floundering in a barrel of vintage Malmsey.

However, it not only is no fun, but also more times than not it is a complete and utter waste of time trying to get people to adopt a more critical approach to thinking. Because for every Big Data bullshit babbler, there is a battalion of intransigent Big Data believers stuck in untenable and absurd positions, marooned from reason and ways back to rationality. You can’t use logic against belief, and you can´t turn back a rising tide of IT refugees who are desperately seeking succour in the apparently safer-havens of Big Data, Data Science and Data-driven voodoo.

Only the other day I read that “The emergence of Big Data is now allowing CEOs to increasingly base decisions on current “reality” rather than past experience, but the risks in the integrity and fullness of the data that they are “seeing” and “hearing” is often a barrier to getting a clear picture of what is actually going on.” This is really taking shameless baloney and wilful ignorance to all new heights, but it doesn’t stop there.

Elsewhere another eminent Big Data bullshit babbler wrote, “Clearly big data and AI will change almost every industry this decade… but none more than these”, referring vaguely and vacuously to “Healthcare, Finance and Insurance”.  What species of shameless and fatuous willy-waving goes so far out on a limb that it becomes massively removed from even being a grandiose and beguiling ‘bigging-up’ of a fad?

Finally yet importantly, I almost choked on my supersized Big Data popcorn the other day when I read, “Today, with the rise of the Internet, we capture “data” on everything.  Therefore, the new term “Big Data” is honestly like 1985 again.  But this time, Big Data will actually be really big and by some forecasts, be a $40 billion industry by 2018.”

This is not hype, it is not even simple deceit, it is astroturfing of 22 carat bullshit, and in most cases it’s clearly deliberate, it´s intentional and it´s grossly misleading. So why do people do it?

Given that Big Data is very much a niche technology, with very much a niche appeal, why do so many buffoons go around pretending that Big Data is for all of us? Like as if it was some sort of digital universal-panacea, when at the moment, and at best, it is a walk on bit-player with just a couple of lies who aspires to B actor status. In this sense, at present Big Data isn´t even the hero´s best friend.

Before I close the piece, I will leave you with the thoughts of Dan Ariely. Why? Because it just irritates the hell out of a section of the community of Big Data bullshit babblers, and it´s actually very accurate. Here it is:

“Big data is like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it…”

Many thanks for reading.

In subsequent blog pieces I will be sharing my views on the evolution of information management in general, and the incorporation novel and innovative techniques, technologies and methods into well architected mainstream information supply frameworks, for primarily strategic and tactical objectives.

As always, please reach out and share your questions, views and criticisms on this piece using the comment box below. I frequently write about strategy, organisational, leadership and information technology topics, trends and tendencies. You are more than welcome to keep up with my posts by clicking the ‘Follow’ link and perhaps you will even consider sending me a LinkedIn invite if you feel our data interests coincide. Also feel free to connect via Twitter, Facebook and the Cambriano Energy website.

For more on this and other topics, check out some of my other posts:

Looking for your most valuable data? Follow the money – http://www.itworld.com/article/2982352/big-data/looking-for-your-most-valuable-data-follow-the-money.html

Stuff a great data architect should know –https://goodstrat.com/2015/08/16/stuff-a-great-data-architect-should-know-how-to-be-a-professional-expert

Big Data, the promised land where ‘smart’ is the new doh!–https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/big-data-promised-land-where-smart-new-doh-martyn-jones?trk=prof-post

Absolutely Fabulous Big Data Roles –https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/absolutely-fabulous-big-data-roles-martyn-jones?trk=prof-post

Not banking on Big Data? – https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/banking-big-data-martyn-jones?trk=prof-post

10 amazing reasons to join The Big Data Contrarians –https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/10-amazing-reasons-join-big-data-contrarians-martyn-jones?trk=prof-post

Amazing Data Warehousing with Hadoop and Big Data–https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cloudera-kimball-dw-building-disinformation-factory-martyn-jones?trk=prof-post

The Big Data Contrarians: The Agora for Big Data dialogue–https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/big-data-contrarians-agora-dialogue-martyn-jones?trk=mp-reader-card

The Big Data Shell Game – https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/big-data-shell-game-martyn-jones?trk=mp-reader-card

Aligning Data Warehousing and Big Data –https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/aligning-data-warehousing-big-martyn-jones?trk=mp-reader-card

Big Data Luddites – https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/big-data-luddites-martyn-jones?trk=mp-reader-card

Data Warehousing Explained to Big Data Friends –https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/data-warehousing-explained-big-friends-martyn-jones?trk=mp-reader-card

Big Data, a promised land where the Big Bucks grow –https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/big-data-promised-land-where-bucks-grow-martyn-jones-6023459994031177728?trk=mp-reader-card

The Big Data Contrarians – https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/big-data-contrarians-martyn-jones?trk=mp-reader-card

Is big data really for you? Things to consider before diving in–https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/big-data-really-you-things-consider-before-diving-martyn-jones?trk=mp-reader-card

Big Data Explained to My Grandchildren –https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/big-data-explained-my-grandchildren-martyn-jones?trk=mp-reader-card

If you enjoy this piece or find it useful then please consider joining The Big Data Contrarians:

Join The Big Data Contrarians here: https://www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=8338976

Many thanks, Martyn.

The Million-Dollar Big Data Briefing

11 Wed Nov 2015

Posted by in agile, Big Data, Consider this, Data Lake, Inform, educate and entertain., Martyn Jones, Martyn Richard Jones

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If you enjoy this piece or find it useful then please consider joining The Big Data Contrarians: https://www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=8338976

Many thanks, Martyn.

Big Data, together with Cloud computing, the Internet of Things and Machine Learning, are topics that are very much to the fore in contemporary trends in Information Management. But is Big Data really the revolution that people have been waiting for or is it simply about the next steps in the evolution of business data architecture and management?  Continue reading →

The Princess Diana Memorial Data Lake

11 Wed Nov 2015

Posted by in Big Data, Data Lake, hadoop, Inform, educate and entertain., Martyn Jones

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If you enjoy this piece or find it useful then please consider joining The Big Data Contrarians: https://www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=8338976

Many thanks, Martyn.

If Princess Diana had been alive during the formative years of the Big Data revolution there would have been a plethora of influential Big Data bullshit babblers issuing their gushingly awful pieces in places like Forbes, the WSJ and professional blogging forums about the Big Data humanitarian causes closest to the heart of the peoples’ princess. And if tragedy had repeated itself, and had been reported not as paparazzi driven schmaltz or morbid vulgarity, but as something even more rancid and farcical, we would now have a Princess Diana Memorial Data Lake in some regal park in London or Milton Keynes –powered by Hadoop. Because, as the bullshit babblers would have it, “that is what she would have wanted”.

But, is this entirely fair? Should we view the outpourings of the biggest Big Data bullshit babblers on the entire internet as the inevitable result of free will, or is Big Data a message from God, in the same way that hard drugs are a signal to certain rock stars that they have too much available cash?

Which brings me to another issue. In a recent interview, I was given a list of data related terms, and was asked which one I preferred. Big Data, Smart Data, Small Data… you know what I mean. Anyway, I went off on a tangent about domestic pets and anthropomorphism. Okay, so it was logical entrapment, but I wanted to make a point. “Don´t you think that ascribing human behavior and thought to pets is a bit weird?” I asked. “No, came back the reply”. It wasn´t the answer I wanted, because the answer I wanted was “Yes, it certainly is” not a “No, that’s what my mum thinks as well”. I wanted to say see, people who ascribe human characteristics to dogs strike us as being a bit fanciful, but people who do the same for data? How can a bunch of recognizable symbols embody smartness? I mean, data by itself, of itself, is dumber than a rock.

So why do we pretend that the information, knowledge and the smarts are in the data and that data itself, without the need for any intervention (other than Hadoop, Sparke or Hive, etc.), is capable of revealing this smartness?

And the only thing I can think is that we are so desperate to sell useless crap that no one needs or wants, that we are even capable of saying the most dopiest of things in order to do so.

Anyway, I was at a Big Data conference recently, and every presenter selling a tool made exactly the same type of pitch. The amazing ways that their tools could establish correlations. Some of the examples of the correlations were so contrived, so obviously the creation of PR than the outcome of hands-off automated analysis, that it became seriously embarrassing, not as a professional, but as a human being. What´s more, no one mentioned the absent elephantine concept of causation, so everyone who went in clueless stayed happy in their ignorance throughout the whole wham-bam-tank-you-mam dog and pony session.

Now, I do think that the sort of data processing associated with Big Data does have a place in the old IT toolkit, but the levels of hype, misappropriation and downright lies is seriously queering the pitch. Just look at some of the Big Data articles in places like Forbes, Information Management and LinkedIn. If you haven’t yet noticed the tendency to use tremendous volumes, varieties and velocities of bullshit to push the Big Data envelope, then you really haven’t been paying enough attention.

Many thanks for reading.

If you enjoy this piece or find it useful then please consider joining The Big Data Contrarians: https://www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=8338976

Many thanks, Martyn.