Data has always been a critical resource for organizations. Today, however, data is the true lifeblood for the enterprise, and has earned its position on the list of crucial assets upon which organizations depend. In fact, it’s not uncommon to hear someone use the term currency with respect to their data, demonstrating that data rivals finances in importance.
As a result, entire industries have arisen around protecting and managing that data. At the same time, new types of data-centric workloads have emerged. As the use of data continues its expansion in both volume and velocity, new applications have been developed to deal with the proliferation. They include Hadoop, MongoDB, Couchbase, and Hortonworks, but there are a great many more as well. These types of tools enable organizations to store, manage, and analyze vast quantities of data, searching for insight that can propel the business forward.