Big data processing and distribution systems offer a way to collect, distribute, store, and manage massive, unstructured data sets in real time. These solutions provide a simple way to process and distribute data amongst parallel computing clusters in an organized fashion. Built for scale, these products are created to run on hundreds or thousands of machines simultaneously, each providing local computation and storage capabilities. Big data processing and distribution systems provide a level of simplicity to the common business problem of data collection at a massive scale and are most often used by companies that need to organize an exorbitant amount of data. Many of these products offer a distribution that runs on top of the open-source big data clustering tool Hadoop.
Companies commonly have a dedicated administrator for managing big data clusters. The role requires in-depth knowledge of database administration, data extraction, and writing host system scripting languages. Administrator responsibilities often include implementation of data storage, performance upkeep, maintenance, security, and pulling the data sets. Businesses often use big data analytics tools to then prepare, manipulate, and model the data collected by these systems.
To qualify for inclusion in the Big Data Processing And Distribution Systems category, a product must:
- Collect and process big data sets in real-time
- Distribute data across parallel computing clusters
- Organize the data in such a manner that it can be managed by system administrators and pulled for analysis
- Allow businesses to scale machines to the number necessary to store its data
