Paul Miller
Big Data as Core, Big Data as Context, and Big Data as Buzzword Bingo
It’s neither particularly newsworthy nor insightful to suggest that ‘Big Data’ gets everywhere these days, but two recent items reminded me of the gulf between credible execution of a big data play and the more questionable tacking of the big data meme onto an otherwise useful product. Christmas is coming. Which means skating, and pantomimes [...]
Hewlett Packard: a tale of many clouds
Hewlett Packard used its Discover event in Frankfurt last week to reassert the company’s cloud credentials. Public, private, hybrid; HP is painting pictures that encompass them all, whilst seeking to protect hardware revenues and reassure conservative executives at some of its largest and most profitable customers. But HP has been here before, making bold claims [...]
‘Autonomy Inside’ matters at Hewlett Packard
The Hewlett Packard marketing machine was busy last week, assuring the world that the company’s £7.1bn ($11.7bn) acquisition of Autonomy still made sense despite an eye-watering financial write down and unseemly public squabbling with the Cambridge company’s former management. HP CEO Meg Whitman used her keynote at HP Discover in Frankfurt to assert that the [...]
Dropbox, Google Drive, Apple iCloud, Microsoft SkyDrive; maybe they’re not apples after all?
Cloud storage product Dropbox is one of those tools that users tend to rave about. It’s deceptively simple. It’s pretty reliable. The value proposition is immediately apparent. It has paid tiers of usage that bring additional storage but (like other freemium beacons such as Evernote) the free offering is rich enough to be compelling, engaging, [...]
Tesco uses data for more than just loyalty cards
Tesco. Poster-child of the data-driven retail experience, thanks to its loyalty card and early work with DunnHumby. But Tom Hebbert didn’t talk about that. Instead, he focused on their supply chain work. Rough notes from the session follow. Big Data projects deliver huge returns at Tesco; improving promotions to ensure 30% fewer gaps on shelves, [...]
Data Journalism at The Guardian
UK newspaper, The Guardian, has done some pioneering work to use data, and to engage readers in exploring data to share their own insights. The paper’s Simon Rogers and Google’s Kathryn Hurley shared some of the lessons at the Strata conference. Rough notes follow. Not going to talk about big projects like riots and Wikileaks and MP’s [...]
O’Reilly’s Strata comes to Europe, with a very British opening
O’Reilly’s Big Data extravaganza, Strata, left its native U.S. for the first time this week, coming to London for two days of data; the big, the open, the structured, the unstructured, and the undecided. Whilst many of the companies and issues are the same, whether you’re in London, California or New York City, there are [...]
The next big thing: WeeData
‘Big Data’ has a problem, and that problem is its name. Dig deep into the big data ecosystem, or spend any time at all talking with its practitioners, and you should quickly start hitting the Vs. Initially Volume, Velocity and Variety, the Vs rapidly bred like rabbits. Now we have a plethora of new V-words, [...]
When did Amazon abandon Main Street for ‘the Skyscrapers of Cloud Hosting’ ?
In the competitive world of cloud-based computing infrastructure, Amazon remains top dog. It’s highly visible, its footprint is almost global, it incrementally adds features or cuts prices to keep competitors on their toes, and it generally manages to meet most people’s needs, most of the time. It may not always offer the lowest prices, or [...]
CloudBeat is back – and the call for papers is open
Right at the end of November, we’ll once again be doing what we can to assemble a stellar cast of cloud companies and their customers at the Sofitel in Redwood City, just south of San Francisco.
Thinking about Open Data, with a little help from the Data Hub
Continuing to explore the adoption of explicit Open Data licenses, I’ve been having a trawl through some of the data in the Open Knowledge Foundation‘s Data Hub. I’m disappointed – but not surprised – by the extent to which widely applicable Open Data licenses are (not!) being applied. For those who are impatient or already aware of the background, [...]
GigaOM Pro report on Hadoop and cluster management
My latest piece of work for GigaOM Pro just went live. Scaling Hadoop clusters: the role of cluster management is available to GigaOM Pro subscribers, and was underwritten by StackIQ. Thanks to everyone who took the time to speak with me during the preparation of this report. As the blurb describes, From Facebook to Johns [...]
The Americans are Coming
This October, two great US events are making their first forays into Europe. O’Reilly‘s big data conference, Strata, reaches London on 1-2 October. Then GigaOM‘s cloud computing event, Structure, hits Amsterdam on 16-17 October. I’ve attended both in the States (see disclaimer), and look forward to seeing how each sets about fusing the best elements [...]
Crunching the numbers in search of a greener cloud
Although sometimes portrayed as a big computer in the sky, the reality of cloud computing is far more mundane. Clouds run on physical hardware, located in data centres, connected to one another and to their customers via high speed networks. All of that hardware must be powered and cooled, and all of those offices must [...]
Survey: How open is your data?
Back in 2006 as we rolled out the first public draft of the Talis Community Licence, the world of data licensing seemed a simple place. Today, the Open Knowledge Foundation‘s Data Hub contains 3,888 data sets, many of which are explicitly licensed with respect to the Open Definition. But many are still not explicitly licensed. Over at [...]
