• I like the term "Big Data" for anything that brings more attention to data and how it becomes information is good for IT. But there is also a relative side of "Big Data". As mentioned it has to do with appropriate load management across your servers and is that load too large for the available resources on site.

    For those of you who love equations one way of looking at this is Medium Data + Tiny Hardware = Big Data. Or more correctly stated Medium Data + Tiny Hardware = Big Data Problem. If you have more then you can manage or use within reasonable performance limits your data is big data for your situation.

    You also have to take into consideration that some think they have or will have big data when in reality they do not. Developers and business experts are proponents for the systems the maintain and develop. As the advocate they project that each and every system being developed is going to be the "Killer Application" and that the data needs are going to be huge. Often developers use to worry about how to better manage the "hot spots" that might occur around the read/write heads of the data server. The concern was great and the amount of time considering indexes was massive only to find that the number or real users in the system was only 12% of what was estimated and that the transaction rate per user is only about 20% or the projected rate.

    Sorry for the ramble.

    M.

    Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!