What You Need to Know When Managing Your Big Data

Big Data  

Database administration and development are getting easier. The new tools and technologies that make it possible for individuals and companies to build, manage and deploy large-scale database designs and what some developers are calling "big data" are formidable to say the least. But these new tools require a fair amount of training and study, and they require the right kinds of concentrated effort to make effective.

If you are getting ready to launch a project that relies on big data or is meant to advance your own large-scale database design, you will need certain skills in order to succeed. Here are a few to consider.

Relational Database Management

Even if your new database isn't as reliant on relational concepts as the legacy databases you work with, you will need to understand things like topology, one-to-many and many-to-many relationships, conditional queries and various other subjects in order to either develop or migrate your new database for inclusion and new applications.

Relational database designs are still heavily utilized in gaming, content management systems, application development, creative development and customer relationship management platforms. These systems evolved to meet the needs of companies eager to separate certain kinds of data from others. Their advancements gave rise to new technologies like XML, style vs. content architectures and middleware programming languages like PHP, Java and Python.

In order to migrate these systems from their current development path to a new one, it will be necessary to engineer solutions that match those which inspired the original designs.

Database Protocols

Since the earliest days of desktop and PC network database development, companies like Sybase, Oracle and Microsoft have maintained current working versions of protocols like Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), ADO (Application Data Object) and JDBC (Java Database Connectivity). These technologies make it possible for client applications to use a consistent application programming interface to communicate with what may end up being many disparate database servers, designs and architectures. The reason these protocols are so important is because client applications depend on them. Understanding how and why client applications make use of server-based data is crucial to understanding how to incorporate new "big data" platforms into multiple-tier applications.

Multiple-Tier Development

Microsoft has long encouraged developers to make use of multi-tier applications. Whether they are making use of Office desktop applications as a client interface or using a custom-developed user tier, these applications are renowned for their stability and ease of development. Now, the newest database technologies are bringing big data to multi-tier applications through advancements like hadoop excel drivers, large-scale "hive" data clusters and client-server deployment mechanisms based on both proprietary and shared development resources.

The skills necessary to integrate these applications into client-server or server-to-server systems are very important for developers who want to get the maximum benefit from a large-scale database. This is also a crucial step in building distributed systems across either wide-scale internal networks or the Internet.

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Mobile Development

As a data presentation mechanism, there is no more versatile platform than the mobile phone or tablet. Most developers know full well the inherent power of making data available nearly anywhere. The cloud would not be anywhere near as powerful without this forward-thinking trend.

So it stands to reason that any database developer interested in making the maximum use of their information will be best served if they can find a way to deploy it on both desktop and mobile devices. In the long run, data is most valuable when it can be used as efficiently as possible

While it might seem that contemporary skills and the latest technologies would be enough to advance a big data system, the truth is understanding why things work in a multi-tier or data-driven applications is just as important as having the most up-to-date technologies available.

By  Lindsey Patterson	Embed
Author Bio - Lindsey is a freelance writer specializing in business and consumer technology.