Book Review: Planning for Big Data by Edd Dumbill; O'Reilly

Planning for big data gives a 50000 foot  view into the world of big data and data science.   It is perfect for the big data newbie and the author even says if you're already working with big data you should give the book to a friend.  I found it be a easy read that didn't take longer than 3 or 4 hours.

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 The author glosses over the main areas of big data and provides almost a list of relevant technologies and services.  After reading this book you can get a small glimpse of how large the big data world is.

 Then author begins with why organizations are interested in big data and analyzing their data as quickly as possible.  Then we're introduced to some of the technologies that make it possible, such as Hadoop.

 Cloud computing is a big player in big data and the author gives great comparisons of the main cloud providers, specifically amazon Google and Microsoft.  It was very useful to have a side by side comparison of the services and the features they offer.

 The author also lists out many of the nosql solutions available and why a nosql solution can be beneficial for big data. He emphasizes an agile approach and how nosql allows developers to easily build on existing structure and how it helps to scale horizontally.

 And the last main piece that is mentioned is the importance of visualizations that are interactive and that can communicate complex ideas, as the author puts it, these are different than the normal boring bar graphs and charts put into slide presentations.

In summary I felt Planning for Big Data was a great starting point for someone who's beginning to explore the world of big data and it might even be useful for someone who is a little more familiar with big data to use as a reference of other tools and services that are available.