Changing the World: Big Data and the Cloud

Grazed from The Atlantic. Author: Raul F. Chong.

We are in an age when jobs like "data scientist" are not far from reality. The convergence of two key technological areas — cloud computing and big data — are having far reaching implications that indeed are changing the world.

It’s leading to the discovery of new drugs to cure diseases; predicting weather patterns more accurately (even predicting earthquakes?), finding better ways to use and save water, and so on. These are many of the ideas and projects that IBM has advanced with its Smarter Planet initiative, which has cloud computing and big data technologies at its core…

The Cloud Computing model is a perfect match for big data since cloud computing provides unlimited resources on demand. Just two years ago I was delivering presentations to introduce professionals and students to this new model. Today, cloud is a given, most IT people understand what it is, and many are using it in their jobs.

But while two years ago, Cloud computing was appealing mainly because of its "pay per use" model (ideal in tough economic times), today, it is becoming more important because it is the enabler of big data analytics…

Read more from the source @ http://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/ibm-cloud-rescue/archive/2012/09/changing-the-world-big-data-and-the-cloud/262065/