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What is big data?

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Arthur Ward

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Jun 27, 2012, 11:43:34 AM6/27/12
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Every where I look Ingers/Actian is talking up big data. I had no idea
what that is and I just spent some tiome googling.

I am thinking big data isnt data at all. It seems to be more
like low-grade ore with very little data in it. Is that what all
this fuss is about? Straining tiny amounts of info from an ocean of
dross? Like scanning every tweet to count the number of times someone
mentions cola or Actian?

OK, I get that could be useful. People mine tons of rock for tiny
amoutns of gold. But the language makes you think about it all wrong.

Unless i'm the wrong one. Help me out here.

Art

Ingres Forums

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Jun 27, 2012, 2:02:39 PM6/27/12
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Arthur,

There is no single strict definition of Big Data. A commonly used
"definition" speaks about the 3 Vs:
1) Volume
2) Variety
3) Velocity
Big Data - or Big Data challenges - are described across these 3
dimensions.

In addition to the 3 Vs there is also a notion that Big Data challenges
are data management challenges that cannot be addressed with current
systems. As a result different companies have a different notion of Big
Data challenges. You can probably appreciate that Big Data has a
different meaning or proportion to companies like Google or Facebook
compared to most of the Fortune 1000 companies or a medium size
business.

Finally, a Big Data challenge is not a challenge that necessarily has a
single solution.

To illustrate this I like the analogy of having a problem/challenge of a
leak in your home in the middle of the night. Most people would call a
plumber to get the problem taken care of as soon as possible. Imagine
the plumber would ask you which single tool he/she should bring! You may
not know whether the plumber needs a wrench (what size?), a pair of
pliers, tape maybe, etc. Rather you expect the plumber to bring a tool
box.

Likewise there may not be a single (cost-effective) solution to a big
data challenge. Some challenges may be perfectly addressed by the Ingres
or Vectorwise database products, but maybe these products can only
address part of the solution (cost-effectively). As an example recently
we see several customers adopt the Vectorwise database as a high-speed
analytical database side-by-side with a Hadoop cluster. Hadoop is used
to store cost-effectively all data (often clickstream data) across
hundreds of nodes, and customers extract a subset of the data into
Vectorwise for fast, interactive analysis. Running an equivalent
analytical workload against Hadoop would not be interactive. However
these customers chose Hadoop as the best solution to cost-effectively
store large volumes of data.

Hope this helps clarify your question.

Mark.


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nikosv

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Jun 28, 2012, 3:42:58 AM6/28/12
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I tend to see Big Data from a mining and analytics persepective;for example collecting web site visitor data through cookies and transform that raw data into solid information for identifying business trends. A prime example of the strength analytics engines have come to is described in this article
"How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/

Roy Hann

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Jun 28, 2012, 4:51:24 AM6/28/12
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nikosv wrote:

> I tend to see Big Data from a mining and analytics persepective;for
> example collecting web site visitor data through cookies and transform
> that raw data into solid information for identifying business trends.
> A prime example of the strength analytics engines have come to is
> described in this article
> "How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did"

Two points:

(1) "I tend to see Big Data [as]..." highlights one of my questions
about this stuff that Mark's answer to Art also shone a spotlight on.
Big Data seems to be whatever you want it to be. The term is
defined so there's no way you *can't* need Big Data analytics. That
seems simultaneously banal and unhelpful.

And (2) the Forbes article you point out is dealing with a large
but rigidly structured database, i.e. a traditional VLDB. I don't think
any of us, nor Art needed an new name that. What we need is a tool for
analysing the VLDB rapidly, and sure enough Vectorwise is a brilliant
tool for the job. Shame that vital selling point is hidden in a
diffuse cloud of waffle.

(I'm probably taking this way too seriously.)

--
Roy

UK Actian User Association Conference 2013 will be on Tuesday June 11
2013. Put the date in your diary. www.uk-iua.org.uk


Arthur Ward

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Jun 28, 2012, 5:28:31 AM6/28/12
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I think you are taking it too seiously. Sounds like the words "big
data" are just marketing-chum to get the buyers sniffing around. Once
you have them circling your boat you can start dropping the real bait.
I guess.

nikosv

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Jun 29, 2012, 3:08:20 PM6/29/12
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> And (2) the Forbes article you point out is dealing with a large
> but rigidly structured database, i.e. a traditional VLDB. I don't think
> any of us, nor Art needed an new name that. What we need is a tool for
> analysing the VLDB rapidly, and sure enough Vectorwise is a brilliant
> tool for the job. Shame that vital selling point is hidden in a

point is that the analytics guy harvested the 'Big Data' and got to some solid conclusions using some tools. Surely Vectorwise would be suited to the job

Mike Leo

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Jul 6, 2012, 1:53:15 AM7/6/12
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Gang,

The ACM is having a webinar on "big data": 

ACM Webinar: 2012 – Big Data: End of the World or End of BI?


Thought this might interest some of you.

Cheers,

Michael Leo
Kettle River Consulting

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On net

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Jul 6, 2012, 3:10:31 AM7/6/12
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On 06/07/2012 06:53, Mike Leo wrote:
> Gang,
>
> The ACM is having a webinar on "big data":

I think you mean "had".

Thursday, June 28, 2012 at 12:00 PM EDT/11:00 AM CDT/9:00 AM PDT/4:00 PM UTC


>
> ACM Webinar: 2012 – Big Data: End of the World or End of BI?
>
>
> http://queue.acm.org/blog/?searchterm=big+data&p=96
>
>
> Thought this might interest some of you.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Michael Leo
> Kettle River Consulting
>
> On Jun 29, 2012, at 2:08 PM, nikosv wrote:
>
>>
>>> And (2) the Forbes article you point out is dealing with a large
>>> but rigidly structured database, i.e. a traditional VLDB. I don't think
>>> any of us, nor Art needed an new name that. What we need is a tool for
>>> analysing the VLDB rapidly, and sure enough Vectorwise is a brilliant
>>> tool for the job. Shame that vital selling point is hidden in a
>>
>> point is that the analytics guy harvested the 'Big Data' and got to
>> some solid conclusions using some tools. Surely Vectorwise would be
>> suited to the job
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Info-Ingres mailing list
>> Info-...@kettleriverconsulting.com
>> <mailto:Info-...@kettleriverconsulting.com>
>> http://ext-cando.kettleriverconsulting.com/mailman/listinfo/info-ingres
>


Mike Leo

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Jul 6, 2012, 12:06:41 PM7/6/12
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Odd … I am an ACM member … I just got this mailing …

Must be a software glitch! ;-)
> http://ext-cando.kettleriverconsulting.com/mailman/listinfo/info-ingres



Andy

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Jul 9, 2012, 10:42:21 PM7/9/12
to info-...@kettleriverconsulting.com
Hi All,

Can someone tell me how to change a database access from public to private using an SQL command.

I have the following to add roles to my installation, etc. Just not sure about database access...

sql -u'$ingres' iidbdb <<SQLEND
    create role myrole with password = 'myrolepw'; \p\g
    grant myrole to public; \p\g
SQLEND


Any help is greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Andy.

Roy Hann

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Jul 10, 2012, 3:44:54 AM7/10/12
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Andy wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> Can someone tell me how to change a database access from public to private
> using an SQL command.
>
> I have the following to add roles to my installation, etc. Just not sure
> about database access...
>
> sql -u'$ingres' iidbdb <<SQLEND
> create role myrole with password = 'myrolepw'; \p\g
> grant myrole to public; \p\g
> SQLEND

Interesting question. I am pretty sure you used to be able to do that
just by clearing the low-order bit of the access attribute for the
database in the iidatabase catalogue in iidbdb. That no longer
works--or at least accessdb still reports the database as being public
even if you do clear the bit. (You can clear the low-order bit by
subtracting 1 from whatver the value is, provided it is odd.)

I'm not free to poke around in accessdb to see where it gets its
information so I'll be interested to see what other answers you get.

--
Roy

UK Actian User Association Conference 2012 will be on Tuesday June 11. 2013.
The latest information is available from www.uk-iua.org.uk.


Paul Mason

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Jul 10, 2012, 4:14:53 AM7/10/12
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GRANT NOACCESS ON DATABASE mydb TO PUBLIC

 

HTH

Paul

 

From: info-ingr...@kettleriverconsulting.com [mailto:info-ingr...@kettleriverconsulting.com] On Behalf Of Andy
Sent: 10 July 2012 03:42
To: info-...@kettleriverconsulting.com
Subject: [Info-Ingres] Public to private database

 

Hi All,

Can someone tell me how to change a database access from public to private using an SQL command.

I have the following to add roles to my installation, etc. Just not sure about database access...

sql -u'$ingres' iidbdb <<SQLEND
    create role myrole with password = 'myrolepw'; \p\g
    grant myrole to public; \p\g
SQLEND


lin.a.b...@uk.bnpparibas.com

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Jul 10, 2012, 4:27:16 AM7/10/12
to info-...@kettleriverconsulting.com
How about

sql  iidbdb >> /tmp/do_opendb.$$ << !!
grant access on database $db to public
\g\p\q


Conversely

grant noaccess on database $db to public - (makes private)
\g\p\q

Lin



Internet  
spec...@processed.almost.meat

Sent by: info-ingr...@kettleriverconsulting.com

10-07-12 08:44 AM


To
info-...@kettleriverconsulting.com
cc
Subject
Re: [Info-Ingres] Public to private database


.


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Roy Hann

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Jul 10, 2012, 5:33:19 AM7/10/12
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Paul Mason wrote:

> GRANT NOACCESS ON DATABASE mydb TO PUBLIC

What makes me feel more of a fool is that I actually knew that.

More coffee...

--
Roy

Andy

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Jul 10, 2012, 12:14:12 PM7/10/12
to Ingres and related product discussion forum
Thanks guys.

Another time saver to put in my little black (actually blue) book.

Much appreciated.

Regards,
Andy.



On 10/07/2012 6:14 PM, Paul Mason wrote:

GRANT NOACCESS ON DATABASE mydb TO PUBLIC

 


Sent: 10 July 2012 03:42
To: info-...@kettleriverconsulting.com

Subject: [Info-Ingres] Public to private database

Hi All,

Can someone tell me how to change a database access from public to private using an SQL command.

I have the following to add roles to my installation, etc. Just not sure about database access...

sql -u'$ingres' iidbdb <<SQLEND
    create role myrole with password = 'myrolepw'; \p\g
    grant myrole to public; \p\g
SQLEND


Any help is greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Andy.

_______________________________________________
Info-Ingres mailing list
Info-...@kettleriverconsulting.com
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