Big Data

Measured in terms of volume, velocity, and variety, big data represents a major disruption in the business intelligence and data management landscape, upending fundamental notions about governance and IT delivery. With traditional solutions becoming too expensive to scale or adapt to rapidly evolving conditions, companies are scrambling to find affordable technologies that will help them store, process, and query all of their data. Innovative solutions will enable companies to extract maximum value from big data and create differentiated, more personal customer experiences.

Latest Research

For Enterprise Architecture Professionals

REPORT: Big Data Fabric 2.0 Drives Data Democratization

Advanced Level: Data Practices For Insights-Driven Businesses

May 9, 2019 Noel Yuhanna

Business users want faster and easier access to trusted data to make accurate business decisions, while technology organizations want to simplify data management. Three years ago, Forrester invented the tech category "big data fabric" that addresses these goals and continues to evolve to support data democratization. Our updated big data fabric architecture, version 2.0, reflects new technology enhancements and highlights new opportunities for businesses. Enterprise architecture (EA) pros should use big data fabric to democratize data across the enterprise.
For Application Development & Delivery Professionals

REPORT: Data Warehouse Automation Platforms Help Close The Data-To-Insight Gap

Seven DWA Vendors Bring Agility To The Entire BI/Analytics Development Life Cycle

April 24, 2019 Boris Evelson, Elizabeth Cullen

Self-service business intelligence (BI), analytics, and data preparation platforms only partially support Agile development of BI applications. Parts of the process, like data modeling, still follow a less flexible waterfall development life cycle. In this report, application development and delivery (AD&D) pros will learn about data warehouse automation (DWA) vendors that bring Agile options to all phases of BI/analytics application development. These platforms facilitate shorter development cycles and require fewer human resources with specialized data modeling skills. This is an update of a previously published report; Forrester reviews and updates it periodically for continued relevance and accuracy. We revised this edition to factor in new data and examples.
For Enterprise Architecture Professionals

REPORT: The Forrester Wave™: Big Data NoSQL, Q1 2019

The 15 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up

March 14, 2019 Noel Yuhanna

NoSQL has become critical for all businesses to support modern business applications. In our 26-criterion evaluation of NoSQL providers, we identified the 15 most significant ones — Aerospike, Amazon Web Services (AWS), ArangoDB, Couchbase, DataStax, Google, IBM, MarkLogic, Microsoft, MongoDB, Neo4j, Oracle, RavenDB, Redis Labs, and SAP — and researched, analyzed, and scored them. This report shows how each provider measures up and helps enterprise architecture (EA) professionals select the right one for their needs.
For Enterprise Architecture Professionals

REPORT: Future-Proof Your Data Management Architecture

Seven Strategies To Consider In Keeping Your Architectures Current

March 13, 2019 Noel Yuhanna

Changing business requirements and new technologies drive constant change in data management architectures. Without an effective data management strategy, organizations won't meet the growing business demand to deliver trusted and secure data for business applications and insights. This report shows enterprise architecture (EA) pros how to invest in future-proofing their data management architectures to respond more quickly to customer needs and competitive threats and to enable the delivery of innovative products and services.
For Enterprise Architecture Professionals

REPORT: The Forrester Wave™: Cloud Hadoop/Spark Platforms, Q1 2019

The 11 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up

February 13, 2019 Noel Yuhanna, Mike Gualtieri

Cloud Hadoop/Spark (HARK) platforms accelerate insights by automating the storage, processing, and accessing of big data. In our 25-criterion evaluation of HARK providers, we identified the 11 most significant ones — Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cloudera, Google, Hortonworks, Huawei, MapR, Microsoft, Oracle, Qubole, Rackspace, and SAP — and researched, analyzed, and scored them. This report shows how each provider measures up and helps enterprise architecture (EA) professionals select the right one for their needs. Note: Cloudera and Hortonworks completed their planned merger on January 3, 2019, and will continue as Cloudera. This Forrester Wave reflects our evaluation of each company's independent HARK platforms prior to the completion of the merger.