Big Data : An Introduction

    Big data really isn't new.Big data is an IT buzzword nowadays, but what does it really mean? When does data become big?

    Data has been getting bigger for years, and companies have been finding ways to glean insights from their growing stockpiles of data for years. But it seems that calling it by a new buzzword is what it took to move it front and center for high level executives. It worked for cloud computing, didn't it?

"Big Data" is a catch phrase that has been bubbling up from the high performance computing niche of the IT market. Increasingly suppliers of processing virtualization and storage virtualization software have begun to flog "Big Data" in their presentations. What, exactly, does this phrase mean?

If one sits through the presentations from ten suppliers of technology, fifteen or so different definitions are likely to come forward. Each definition, of course, tends to support the need for that supplier's products and services. Imagine that.

In simplest terms, the phrase refers to the tools, processes and procedures allowing an organization to create, manipulate, and manage very large data sets and storage facilities. Does this mean terabytes, petabytes or even larger collections of data? The answer offered by these suppliers is "yes." They would go on to say, "you need our product to manage and make best use of that mass of data." Just thinking about the problems created by the maintenance of huge, dynamic sets of data gives me a headache.

An example often cited is how much weather data is collected on a daily basis by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to aide in climate, ecosystem, weather and commercial research. Add that to the masses of data collected by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for its research and the numbers get pretty big. The commercial sector has its poster children as well. Energy companies have amassed huge amounts of geophysical data. Pharmaceutical companies routinely munch their way through enormous amounts of drug testing data. What about the data your organization maintains in all of its datacenters, regional offices and on all of its user-facing systems (desktops, laptops and handheld devices)?

Large organizations increasingly face the need to maintain large amounts of structured and unstructured data to comply with government regulations. Recent court cases have also lead them to keep large masses of documents, Email messages and other forms of electronic communication that may be required if they face litigation.

Like the term virtualization, big data is likely to be increasingly part of IT world. It would be a good idea for your organization to consider the implications of the emergence of this catch phrase.

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Which Windows browser is really the best?

                 Your Web browser is probably the most-used application on your PC. You check your email in it, you write in it, you collaborate with coworkers in it, you use it to watch cat videos. With so much at stake, you need a browser that works well for you.


Browser performance

When we looked at the browser contenders previously, we concluded that all the major browsers loaded webpages at similar speeds.

But many new Web apps and services rely heavily on HTML5 and JavaScript, so the browser makers have been spending a lot of development time making sure that their programs render such apps and services quickly and efficiently.

To gauge how well browsers handle HTML5 and JavaScript code, we subjected Chrome, IE, and Firefox to the Sunspider JavaScript benchmark and to the WebVizBench benchmark for HTML5. In addition, we tested on a PC with switchable Nvidia graphics hardware to see how each browser exploited the extra processing horsepower in the graphics card.

Our test PC was an Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M5 laptop with a 1.7GHz Intel Core i5 processor and 6GB of memory. The switchable graphics system consisted of an integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 chipset and a dedicated Nvidia GeForce GT 640M graphics card with 1GB of video memory.

In our WebVizBench HTML5 benchmark test, Chrome and IE 9 saw large increases in performance when we switched to the dedicated graphics card instead of the integrated graphics chip.

Chrome achieved an average score of 5502 when we used the integrated graphics system, and hit an average of 5825 when we used the Nvidia graphics card. IE 9 came in second with average scores of 4797 and 5642, respectively; Firefox finished third after posting average scores of 4492 and 5600. Notably, Chrome did almost as well on this test using the integrated graphics hardware as the other browsers did using the more powerful Nvidia graphics card. So if your PC has a weak graphics card, you'll probably get better performance from Chrome than from Firefox or IE.

Our tests for JavaScript performance were less conclusive, with all three browsers rendering the benchmark’s JavaScript code within 15 milliseconds of one another. Internet Explorer 9 eked out a narrow victory, completing the Sunspider benchmark in 200 milliseconds. Chrome 21 finished in second place at 206 milliseconds, and Firefox 15 rounded out the three at 214 milliseconds.

Winner: Google Chrome. Browser performance will vary some depending on your PC, but Chrome was a solid all-around performer in our testing.

Ease of use

Current browsers continue the less-is-more trend that began with Google Chrome's introduction in 2008, sporting thin toolbars and minimalist designs so that the page content takes center stage.

Browser toolbars compared: Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome.

Internet Explorer 9: In IE 9, Microsoft chose a hyperminimalist approach with an extremely narrow toolbar and few on-screen controls. By default, IE 9 shows the address bar and tabs in the same row, which can make things a little too tight, especially if you frequently have a lot of tabs open at once (you can choose to show the tab bar in a separate row, though). On the far-right edge of the toolbar lie three buttons that take you to your browser homepage, show your favorites, or toggle various settings.

One nicety in IE 9 is its unobtrusive method of providing notifications: Instead of popping up an alert box that interrupts your browsing, it displays the message in a bar at the bottom of the browser window, where you can address it when you're good and ready. In addition, IE 9 shows you a download's progress via its taskbar icon, which fills in with green as you download a file.

Chrome 21: Google has stuck with the same basic look and feel for Chrome since releasing it in 2008. It has no title bar, and by default it shows only the back, forward, and reload buttons, as well as the combined search/address bar and a button on the far right that opens a tools menu. The start screen helps you reach your most visited sites, as well as any Web apps you've added via the Chrome Web Store. When you download a file, it appears in a gray bar that lives at the bottom of the window.

Click the orange button in the upper-left corner of any Firefox browser window to access frequently used commands.

Firefox 15: While most other browsers now feature a combined search and address bar, Mozilla keeps the two separate in Firefox 15. Whether separate fields are better than combined ones is a matter of personal preference. (Note that Firefox does let you search from the address bar and remove the separate search box is you prefer.)

One convenient feature of Firefox allows you to switch between search engines readily: If you want to use Bing instead of Google, for instance, you can do that with two clicks. Chrome permits you to switch between search providers, too, but requires a quick tweak in the Settings screen. With IE you need to install an add-on for each search provider (other than Bing) you want to add.

Like other current Windows browsers, Firefox doesn't show a menu bar by default; the various menu options live in a single menu that pops up when you click the orange 'Firefox' button in the upper-left corner of the window.

Winner: Tie. In truth, you won't find much differentiation between browser interfaces these days. All the prominent ones work the same, save for a few fairly minor differences.