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With the fast-pace growth of Hadoop, Cloudera, and other big data news, it can be hard to keep up with all the latest information coming out. Fortunately, you don’t have to. This week, we take a look at what’s being said in the tech industry about the latest Heartbleed bug, and how data is being used (check out the specific numbers below!)
Is Your Private Info Safe Online?
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock this past week, you know that your passwords are at risk. A major security breach struck the Internet, and some of the biggest websites were hit hard. If you got a notification of some strange activity on one of your accounts, chances are you were not immune to the Heartbleed bug. Even if you were aware of this nearly Web-wide security vulnerability, you might not have taken action to change some of your passwords. Mashable compiled a list of some of the more popular websites to be hit by Heartbleed. If you haven’t already, check it out – and change your passwords!
Here’s a Different Type of Security You Might Not Have Thought About
Despite how paperless our offices and lives have become, paper still has a place in business. Records from a decade or two ago may still be needed and relevant. Older workers may be more productive using paper to take notes than younger workers. The problem is that all of this paper must be compiled and turned into digital data. So how can you keep track of it all? An article from ITproportal.com recommends using a centralized system. It may sound pretty obvious, but many businesses fail to do it the right way, and the outcome is costly. The key is to keep better track of what you know, where your data is located and who is responsible for the information.
How Much Data do You Really Need?
Once you pull all of your data together, the amount of information your company has filed away might seem overwhelming. So how much data is too much? And is there such a thing? It seems the common perception is "the more data the better" – but is that really the case? The question was posed at the Hadoop Summit in Amsterdam, where Forrester principal analyst, Mike Gualtieri, told the audience he had around 800 MB of data. Gualtieri went on to explain that big data only describes all of the data a firm has. There is no golden rule about how much data is needed to be useful when it comes to big data. What really matters is that firms gather enough information about opportunities and issues from big data, no matter how many megabytes or petabytes are stored. You can read more about Gualtieri’s argument – and Hadoop’s role in managing big data – on ZDnet.
Big Data, A Little Controversy
In spite of the evidence, there’s still plenty of controversy around big data. An article by data scientist Vincent Granville on DataScienceCentral.com takes a look at some recent articles in the media that state that there are significant problems with big data, and that it’s no wonder that professionals still speculate about whether this is the high-powered fuel needed to understand consumers and grow businesses. Although you’ll find far more articles about the positive effects of big data, it’s worth digging into whether this new innovation is worth the investment.
Big Data’s Carbon Footprint
As more marketers, managers and analysts employ the power of big data to fuel their businesses, many wonder how many resources it takes to collect this information. Taking a step back to look at the numbers behind how big data is captured shows just how big of a carbon footprint is being left by these collection centers. As environmental concerns become increasingly important for many consumers and businesses, limiting big data’s big carbon footprint may be of key concern.
