Hadoop is expected to continue to grow in 2015, with more companies building smart applications that use the data-sifting, open-source software platform.
In a report, Forrester predicts Hadoop will become bigger and more versatile as more companies adopt it as a cornerstone of their business technology agendas.
With companies like Wal-Mart, Verizon Communications and Netflix already using Hadoop to mine data fields for useful information about their customers, many other companies are expected to hop aboard the Hadoop train and find ways to use the software, according to the Forrester study.
One area of growth is Hadoop’s SQL application. Already an app used to read and write databases, the app could become an industry standard. One reason is that many business intelligence and analytics tools are compatible with the app.
But with all the growth, there have been growing pains. This year has seen a shortage of experts emerge in Hadoop software. That is expected to change in 2015, however, as companies focus more internal resources on projects in an effort to fill data lakes. That could be bad news for consultants, as many companies look inward there will be less of a demand for out-sourced independent experts.
Next year is also expected see Hadoop clusters increasingly move to the cloud to help solve the problem of idle on-premise resources. The cloud is expected to help free up resources when they are not being used. The Forrester study predicts enterprises will be able to spin up to 1,000 nodes on more complicated jobs and then be able to instantly knock back the network resources when they are not needed.
Database options are expected to grow as well, providing better resource management features. Forrester expects more database options and middleware will run directly on Hadoop in the coming year.
But all this growth will undoubtedly come with increased competition from specialized public and private cloud distributors as more companies try to get a piece of that ever-expanding big data pie. This could be good news for customers as it is expected to give them more options in 2015.
