February 2013

Planning Guide

Getting Started with Big Data

Steps IT Managers Can Take to Move Forward with Apache Hadoop* Software

Why You Should Read This Document

This planning guide provides valuable information and practical steps
for IT managers who want to plan and implement big data analytics
initiatives and get started with Apache Hadoop* software, including:
The IT landscape for big data and the challenges and opportunities
associated with this disruptive force
Introduction to Hadoop* software, the emerging standard for
gaining insight from big data, including processing and analytic
tools (Apache Hadoop MapReduce, Apache HBase* software)
Guidance on how to get the most out of Hadoop software with
a focus on areas where Intel can help, including infrastructure
technology, optimizing, and tuning
Five basic next steps and a checklist to help IT managers move
forward with planning and implementing their own Hadoop project

FEBRUARY 2013

Planning Guide

Getting Started with Big Data

Steps IT Managers Can Take to Move Forward with Apache Hadoop* Software

Contents

3 The IT Landscape for Big Data Analytics

4 What Big Data Analytics Is (and Isnt)
6 Emerging Technologies for Managing
Big Data
13 Deploying Hadoop in Your Data Center
18 Five Steps and a Checklist: Get Started
with Your Big Data Analytics Project
20 Intel Resources for Learning More

Intel IT Center Planning Guide | Big Data

The IT Landscape for Big Data Analytics

The buzz about big data analytics is growing louder.
Today, every organization across the globe is faced with an
unprecedented growth in data. Imagine this: The digital universe
of data was expected to expand to 2.7 zettabytes (ZB) by the end
of 2012. Then its predicted to double every two years, reaching
8 ZB of data by 2015.1 Its hard to conceptualize this quantity of
information, but heres one way: If the U.S. Library of Congress holds
462 terabytes (TB) of digital data, then 8 ZB is equivalent to almost
18 million Libraries of Congress.2 Thats really big data.

The Value of Big Data

What exactly is big data, and where is it coming from?
Big data refers to huge data sets that are orders of magnitude
larger (volume); more diverse, including structured, semistructured,
and unstructured data (variety); and arriving faster (velocity) than
you or your organization has had to deal with before. This flood
of data is generated by connected devicesfrom PCs and smart
phones to sensors such as RFID readers and traffic cams. Plus,
its heterogeneous and comes in many formats, including text,
document, image, video, and more.
What about the 8 ZB of data projected for 2015? Nearly 15 billion
connected devicesincluding 3 billion Internet users plus machine-tomachine connectionswill contribute to this ocean of data.3
The real value of big data is in the insights it produces when
analyzedfinding patterns, deriving meaning, making decisions,
and ultimately responding to the world with intelligence.

Using Big Data Analytics to Win

Big data is a disruptive force, presenting opportunities as well as
challenges to IT organizations. A study by the McKinsey Global Institute
established that data is as important to organizations as labor and
capital.4 The study concluded that if organizations can effectively
capture, analyze, visualize, and apply big data insights to their business
goals, they can differentiate themselves from their competitors and
outperform them in terms of operational efficiency and the bottom line.

Intel IT Center Planning Guide | Big Data

Big data analytics represents a significant challenge for IT

organizationsand yet according to an Intel survey of 200 IT
managers, 84 percent are already analyzing unstructured data,
and 44 percent of those that arent expect to do so by 2014.5 The
potential for big data is irresistible.
The three Vs characterize what big data is all about, and also help
define the major issues that IT needs to address:
Volume. The massive scale and growth of unstructured data
outstrips traditional storage and analytical solutions.
Variety. Traditional data management processes cant cope with
the heterogeneity of big dataor shadow or dark data, such as
access traces and Web search histories.
Velocity. Data is generated in real time, with demands for usable
information to be served up immediately.

A Mountain of Data
1 Kilobyte (KB) = 1,000 Bytes
1 Megabyte (MB) = 1,000,000 Bytes
1 Gigabyte (GB) = 1,000,000,000 Bytes
1 Terabyte (TB) = 1,000,000,000,000 Bytes
1 Petabyte (PB) = 1,000,000,000,000,000 Bytes
1 Exabyte (EB) = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 Bytes
1 Zettabyte (ZB) = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Bytes
1 Yottabyte (YB) = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Bytes

Big data is measured in terabytes, petabytes, and even exabytes. Put it all in perspective
with this handy conversion chart.

What Big Data Analytics Is (and Isnt)

Big data analytics is clearly a game changer, enabling organizations to gain insights from new sources of data that havent been mined in
the past. Heres more about what big data analytics is and isnt.

Big Data Analytics Is

Big Data Analytics Isnt

A technology-enabled strategy for gaining richer, deeper insights

into customers, partners, and the businessand ultimately
gaining competitive advantage.

Just about technology. At the business level, its about how to

exploit the vastly enhanced sources of data to gain insight.

Working with data sets whose size and variety is beyond the
ability of typical database software to capture, store, manage,
and analyze.
Processing a steady stream of real-time data in order to make
time-sensitive decisions faster than ever before.
Distributed in nature. Analytics processing goes to where the
data is for greater speed and efficiency.
A new paradigm in which IT collaborates with business users and
data scientists to identify and implement analytics that will
increase operational efficiency and solve new business problems.
Moving decision making down in the organization and
empowering people to make better, faster decisions in real time.

Intel IT Center Planning Guide | Big Data

Only about volume. Its also about variety and velocity. But
perhaps most important, its about value derived from the data.
Generated or used only by huge online companies like Google
or Amazon anymore. While Internet companies may have
pioneered the use of big data at web scale, applications touch
every industry.
About one-size-fits-all traditional relational databases built
on shared disk and memory architecture. Big data analytics
uses a grid of computing resources for massively parallel
processing (MPP).
Meant to replace relational databases or the data warehouse.
Structured data continues to be critically important to companies.
However, traditional systems may not be suitable for the new
sources and contexts of big data.

The Purpose of This Guide

The remainder of this guide will describe emerging technologies for
managing and analyzing big data, with a focus on getting started
with the Apache Hadoop* open-source software framework, which
provides the framework for distributed processing of large data sets
across clusters of computers. Well also provide five practical steps
you can take to begin planning your own big data analytics project
using this technology.

Your New Best Friend:

The Data Scientist
A new kind of professional is helping organizations make sense
of the massive streams of digital information: the data scientist.
Data scientists are responsible for modeling complex business
problems, discovering business insights, and identifying
opportunities. They bring to the job:
Skills for integrating and preparing large, varied data sets
Advanced analytics and modeling skills to reveal and
understand hidden relationships
Business knowledge to apply context
Communication skills to present results
Data science is an emerging field. Demand is high, and finding
skilled personnel is one of the major challenges associated
with big data analytics. A data scientist may reside in IT or the
businessbut either way, he or she is your new best friend
and collaborator for planning and implementing big data
analytics projects.

Intel IT Center Planning Guide | Big Data

Emerging Technologies for

Managing Big Data
New technologies are emerging to make big data analytics
scalable and cost-effective. One new approach uses the power
of a distributed grid of computing resources and shared nothing
architecture, distributed processing frameworks, and nonrelational
databases to redefine the way data is managed and analyzed.

For organizations to realize the full potential of big data, they must
find a new approach to capturing, storing, and analyzing data.
Traditional tools and infrastructure arent as efficient working with
larger and more varied data sets coming in at high velocity.

Shared Nothing Architecture for Massively Scalable Systems

services such as Google* and Amazon*, each node is independent
and stateless, so that shared nothing architecture scales easily
simply add another nodeenabling systems to handle growing
processing loads.

The new shared nothing architecture can scale with the huge
volumes, variety, and speed requirements of big data by distributing
the work across dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of commodity
servers that process the data in parallel. First implemented by
large community research projects such as SETI@home and online

HARD

WA

RE

AR

Single Processor

CH

IT
EC
TU

Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP)

RE

Multicore Computing
Massively Parallel Processing (MPP)

RCH
DATA A

Distributed Grid

CT

UR

Local Flat Files

Hierarchical
Relational
Partitioned

Complex-Flexible/
Nonrelational

APP

LICATION ARCH

ITEC

TU

RE

Shared
Nothing

ITE

Parallel Layers
Distributed Frameworks
Parallel Algorithms
Multitasking/Multithreaded
Sequential

Shared nothing architecture is possible because of the convergence of advances in hardware, data management, and analytic
applications technologies.
Source: Data rEvolution. CSC Leading Edge Forum (2011).

Intel IT Center Planning Guide | Big Data

Processing is pushed out to the nodes where the data resides. This
is completely different from a traditional approach, which retrieves
data for processing at a central point.
Ultimately, the data must be reintegrated to deliver meaningful
results. Distributed processing software frameworks make the
computing grid work by managing and pushing the data across
machines, sending instructions to the networked servers to work in
parallel, collecting individual results, and then reassembling them for
the payoff.

Distributed Processing Frameworks and

the Emergence of Apache Hadoop
Hadoop* is evolving as the best new approach to big data analytics.
An outgrowth of the Apache Nutch* open-source Web search
project,6 Hadoop is a software framework that provides a simple
programming model to enable distributed processing of large data
sets on clusters of computers. The framework easily scales on
hardware such as servers based on Intel Xeon processors.
Hadoop software is a complete open-source framework for big
data analytics. It includes a distributed file system, a parallel
processing framework called Apache Hadoop MapReduce, and
several components that support the ingestion of data, coordination
of workflows, management of jobs, and monitoring of the cluster.
Hadoop is more cost-effective at handling large unstructured data
sets than traditional approaches.
Hadoop offers several key advantages for big data analytics, including:
Store any data in its native format. Because data does not
require translation to a specific schema, no information is lost.
Scale for big data. Hadoop is already proven to scale by
companies like Facebook and Yahoo!, which run enormous
implementations.
Deliver new insights. Big data analytics is uncovering hidden
relationships that have been difficult, time consuming, and
expensiveor even impossibleto address using traditional data
mining approaches.

Intel IT Center Planning Guide | Big Data

Reduce costs. Hadoop open-source software runs on standard

servers and has a lower cost per terabyte for storage and
processing. Storage can be added incrementally as needed, and
hardware can be added or swapped in or out of a cluster.
Higher availability. Hadoop recovers from hardware, software,
and system failures by providing fault tolerance through
replication of data and failover across compute nodes.
Lower risk. The Hadoop community is active and diverse, with
developers and users from many industries across the globe.
Hadoop is a technology that will continue to advance.

Big Data and the Cloud

Big data requires clusters of servers to support the tools
that process large volumes, high velocity, and varied
formats of big data. Clouds are already deployed on
pools of servers and can scale up or down as needed for
big data.
As a result, cloud computing offers a cost-effective way to
support big data technologies and the advanced analytics
applications that can drive business value.
Find out more about how big data can work in the cloud
in Big Data in the Cloud: Converging Technologies at
intel.com/content/www/us/en/big-data/big-data-cloudtechnologies-brief.html.

Apache Hadoop* Stack

Ambari

Pig*

Data Flow

Oozie

Coordination

HDFS*

Hadoop Distributed File System

HBase*

Hadoop MapReduce

Distributed Processing Framework

ZooKeeper*

Log Data Collector

Flume* | Chukwa*

Hive*

Data Warehouse
Workow

Statistics

Distributed
Table Store

Mahout*

Machine Learning

Sqoop

Relational Database
Data Collector

Provisioning, Managing, and Monitoring Hadoop Clusters

The Hadoop* software stack includes a number of components.

Does Hadoop* Software Replace My Existing Database Systems?

Hadoop* software is a massively scalable storage and data processing
systemits not a database. In fact, it supplements your existing
systems by handling data thats typically a problem for them. Hadoop
can simultaneously absorb and store any type of data from

a variety of sources, aggregate and process it in arbitrary ways, and

deliver it wherever its neededwhich could be serving up real-time
transactional data or providing interactive business intelligence via your
existing systems.

What about Apache Hadoop MapReduce?

MapReduce is the software programming framework in the
Hadoop stack that simplifies processing of big data sets and gives
programmers a common method for defining and orchestrating
complex processing tasks across clusters of computers. MapReduce
applications work like this: The map task splits a data set into
independent chunks to be processed in parallel. The map outputs
are sorted and then submitted to the reduce task. Both input and
output are stored in Apache* Hadoop Distributed File System

Intel IT Center Planning Guide | Big Data

(HDFS*) or other storage such as Amazon S3, part of Amazon Web

Services. Typically the data is processed and stored on the same
node, making it more efficient to schedule tasks where data already
resides and resulting in high aggregate bandwidth across the node.
MapReduce simplifies the application programmers work by taking care
of scheduling jobs, monitoring activity, and reexecuting failed tasks.

Apache Hadoop* at a Glance

Apache Hadoop* is a community-led effort that includes three key development subprojects as well as other related initiatives.

Key Development Subprojects

Apache* Hadoop*
Distributed File
System (HDFS*)

The primary storage system that uses multiple replicas of data blocks, distributes them on nodes
throughout a cluster, and provides high-throughput access to application data

Apache Hadoop
MapReduce

A programming model and software framework for applications that perform distributed
processing of large data sets on compute clusters

Apache Hadoop
Common

Utilities that support the Hadoop framework, including FileSystem (an abstract base class
for a generic file system), remote-procedure call (RPC), and serialization libraries

Other Related Hadoop Projects

Apache Avro*

A data serialization system

Apache Cassandra*

A scalable, multimaster database with no single point of failure

Apache Chukwa*

A data collection system for monitoring large distributed systems built on HDFS and MapReduce;
includes a toolkit for displaying, monitoring, and analyzing results

Apache HBase*

A scalable, distributed database that supports structured data storage for large tables; used for
random, real-time read/write access to big data

Apache Hive*

A data warehouse infrastructure that provides data summarization, ad hoc querying, and the
analysis of large data sets in Hadoop-compatible file systems

Apache Mahout*

A scalable machine learning and data mining library with implementations of a wide range of
algorithms, including clustering, classification, collaborative filtering, and frequent-pattern mining

Apache Pig*

A high-level data-flow language and execution framework for expressing parallel data analytics

Apache ZooKeeper*

A high-performance, centralized coordination service that maintains configuration

information and naming and provides distributed synchronization and group services for
distributed applications

Source: Apache Hadoop, hadoop.apache.org.

Hear from Apache Hadoop* Experts

One way to learn about Apache Hadoop* software and its components is to hear directly from experts deeply engaged in the open-source
community and its development work. Listen to the podcasts of interviews of community leaders for Apache Hadoop MapReduce, Apache*
HDFS*, Apache Hive*, Apache Pig*, and Apache HCatalog, describing how each works, where it fits in the Hadoop* stack, and plans for continued
development. PDFs accompany each podcast.

Intel IT Center Planning Guide | Big Data

Hadoop* Adoption
As more and more enterprises recognize the value and advantages
associated with big data insights, adoption of Hadoop software is
growing. The Hadoop open-source technology stack includes an
open-source implementation of MapReduce, HDFS, and the Apache
HBase* distributed database that supports large, structured data tables.
After six years of refinements, Apache released the first full
production version of Apache Hadoop 1.0 software in January 2012.
Among the certified features supported in this version are HBase*,
Kerberos security enhancements, and a representational state
transfer (RESTful) API to access HDFS.7
Hadoop software can be downloaded from one of the Apache
download sites. Because Hadoop software is an open-source,
volunteer project, the Hadoop wiki provides information about
getting help from the community as well as links to tutorials and
user documentation for implementing, troubleshooting, and setting
up a cluster.

Accelerating Big Data

Analytics Standards
The Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA), an independent IT
consortium comprised of global IT leaders from more than 300
companies, recently announced the formation of the Data
Services Workgroup to document the most urgent requirements
facing IT for data management. The workgroup will focus
initially on creating usage model requirements that address
security, manageability, and interoperability of emerging big
data frameworks with traditional data management and data
warehouse solutions. Based on the usage models, workgroup
members will develop reference architectures and proofs
of concept for commercial distribution with independent
software vendors and OEM partners to test deployments and
establish solutions for the enterprise market. The alliance will
also collaborate with the open-source community to drive
benchmarking suites. As technical advisor to ODCA, Intel will play
a major role in the development of standards and best practices
for big data analytics.

The Hadoop Ecosystem

The Hadoop ecosystem is a complex landscape of vendors and
solutions that includes established players and several newcomers.
Several vendors offer their own Hadoop distribution, packaging
the basic stack with other Hadoop software projects such as
Apache Hive*, Apache Pig*, and Apache Chukwa*. Some of these
distributions can integrate with data warehouses, databases, and
other data management products so that data can move between
Hadoop clusters and other environments to expand the pool of data
to process or query.

10 Intel IT Center Planning Guide | Big Data

Other vendors provide Hadoop management software that

simplifies administration and troubleshooting. A third group delivers
products that help developers write Hadoop applications, provide
search capabilities, or analyze data without using MapReduce. These
products sit on top of platform software and include abstraction
layers that marry a Structured Query Language (SQL) data
warehouse to a Hadoop cluster as well as real-time processing and
analytics. Finally, theres growing interest in offering subscription
services via the cloud.

Apache Hadoop* Goes Commercial

Apache Hadoop*-related offerings are in market in several categories. The following vendors are a sample of the growing Hadoop* ecosystem.

Category

Vendor/Offering

Integrated Hadoop systems

EMC* Greenplum*
HP* Big Data Solutions
IBM* InfoSphere*
Microsoft* Big Data Solution
Oracle* Big Data Appliance

Hadoop applications and

analytical databases with Hadoop
connectivity

Datameer* Analytics Solution

Hadapt* Adaptive Analytic Platform*
HP Vertica* Analytics Platform
Karmasphere* Analyst
ParAccel* Analytic Platform
Pentaho* Data Integration
Splunk* Enterprise*
Teradata* Aster* Solution

Hadoop distributions

Clouderas Distribution including Apache Hadoop (CDH)

EMC Greenplum HD
Hortonworks
IBM InfoSphere BigInsights
Intel Distribution for Apache Hadoop Software
MapR* M5 Edition
Microsoft Big Data Solution
Platform Computing* MapReduce

Cloud-based solutions

Amazon* Web Services

Google* BigQuery

See Big Data Vendor Spotlights for some of the Intel partners who offer big data solutions.
Note: The Hadoop ecosystem is emerging rapidly. This list is adapted from two sources: Dumbill, Edd. Big Data Market Survey: Hadoop Solutions.
OReilly Radar (January 19, 2012). http://radar.oreilly.com/2012/01/big-data-ecosystem.html and Data rEvolution: CSC Leading Edge Forum. CSC
(2011). http://assets1.csc.com/lef/downloads/LEF_2011Data_rEvolution.pdf

11 Intel IT Center Planning Guide | Big Data

Two Approaches to Using Hadoop

Software for Big Data Analytics
Enterprises are taking two basic approaches to implementing Hadoop.
Hadoop-only deployments. Hadoop deployments are available
as open-source software that can be downloaded free from Apache
or as distributions from vendors that prepackage the Hadoop
framework with certain components and management software to
support system administration.
Hadoop-only deployments are ideal for building a big data
management platform for unstructured data analytics and insight.
Open-source tools also make it possible to query structured data
using MapReduce applications, HBase, or Hive*.
Hadoop integrated with traditional databases. Organizations
with traditional data warehousing and analytics in place can
extend their existing platform to include an integrated Hadoop
implementation. Connecting existing data management resources
to Hadoop software provides an opportunity to tap both structured
and unstructured data for insights. For example, analysis of complex
call center transcripts can be married to structured data about
buying behavior, such as specific SKUs, retail outlets, geographies,
and so on. In this case, proprietary connectors are used to move data
back and forth from Hadoop to traditional environments.

12 Intel IT Center Planning Guide | Big Data

Intel Distribution for Apache

Hadoop* Software
Intel Distribution for Apache Hadoop* software (Intel
Distribution) includes Apache Hadoop and other software
components optimized by Intel with hardware-enhanced
performance and security capabilities. Designed to enable
a wide range of data analytics on Apache Hadoop, Intel
Distribution is optimized for Apache Hive* queries, provides
connectors for R* for statistical processing, and enables
graph analytics using Intel Graph Builder for Apache Hadoop
software, a library to construct large data sets into graphs
to help visualize relationships between data. Included in the
Intel Distribution, Intel Manager for Apache Hadoop provides
a management console that simplifies the deployment,
configuration, and monitoring of a Hadoop* deployment.
Intel Distribution is available worldwide today for evaluation.
Technical support is provided currently in the United States, China,
and Singapore, with other geographies expected later in the year.
Find out more about the Intel Distribution.

Deploying Hadoop in Your Data Center

Big data analytics is a technology-enabled strategy that is much
more than the hardware and software that support it. Nevertheless,
as an IT manager, the responsibility for implementing big data
initiatives in your data center will fall to you. Hadoop deployments
can have very large infrastructure requirements, and hardware and

software choices made at design time can have significant impact

on performance and total cost of ownership. Data centers can get
the most from their Hadoop deployments by ensuring that the right
infrastructure is in place and that Hadoop software is optimized and
tuned for best performance.

Put the Right Infrastructure in Place

The Hadoop framework works on the principle of moving computing
closer to where the data resides, and the framework typically
runs on large server clusters built using standard hardware. This
is where the data is stored and processed. The combination of
Hadoop infrastructure with standard server platforms provides the
foundation for a cost-efficient and high-performance analytics
platform for parallel applications.

Setting Up Hadoop System Architecture

Each cluster has one master node with multiple slave nodes.
The master node uses the NameNode and JobTracker functions
to coordinate slave nodes to get the job done. The slaves use the
TaskTracker function to manage the jobs scheduled by JobTracker,
HDFS to store data, and map and reduce functions for data
computation. The basic software stack includes Hive and Pig* for
language and compilers, HBase for NoSQL database management,
and Apache Sqoop and Apache Flume* for log collection. Apache
ZooKeeper* provides centralized coordination for the stack.

13 Intel IT Center Planning Guide | Big Data

The Cost of Big Data Analytics

A 2012 survey from InformationWeek tackles the question of
big data economics, finding that budget constraints and other
cost-related issues are top barriers for IT managers. Building your
own Apache Hadoop* deployment and investing in storage and
development resources or implementing a proprietary vendor
solution can incur significant costs. While the cloud offers some
potential relief, pricing models for public cloud providers may not
offer enough. With storage and computing costs continuing to
decline, deploying and managing your own Hadoop* clusters may
provide the best economics over both public cloud and vendor
systemseven adding in the cost of a skilled person to manage
the hardware.
Source: Biddick, Michael. The Big Data Management Challenge. InformationWeek
(April 2012). http://reports.informationweek.com/abstract/81/8766/businessintelligence-and-information-management/research-the-big-data-managementchallenge.html

Apache Hadoop* Deployment on a Cluster of Standard Server Nodes

NameNode
Master Node
JobTracker

Slave Node

Slave Node

Slave Node

Slave Node

TaskTracker

TaskTracker

TaskTracker

TaskTracker

DataNode

DataNode

DataNode

DataNode

Map

Reduce

Map

Reduce

Map

Reduce

Map

Reduce

Source: Intel Cloud Builders Guide to Cloud Design and Deployment on Intel Platforms: Apache Hadoop*. Intel (February 2012).
intelcloudbuilders.com/docs/Intel_Cloud_Builders_Hadoop.pdf

Operating a Server Cluster

A client submits a job to the master node, which orchestrates
with the slaves in the cluster. JobTracker controls the MapReduce
job, reporting to TaskTracker. In the event of a failure, JobTracker
reschedules the task on the same or a different slave node,
whichever is most efficient. HDFS is location aware or rack aware
and manages data within the cluster, replicating the data on various
nodes for data reliability. If one of the data replicas on HDFS is

14 Intel IT Center Planning Guide | Big Data

corrupted, JobTracker, aware of where other replicas are located,

can reschedule the task right where it resides, decreasing the need
to move data back from one node to another. This saves network
bandwidth and keeps performance and availability high. Once the
job is mapped, the output is sorted and divided into several groups,
which are distributed to reducers. Reducers may be located on the
same node as the mappers or on another node.

Operation of an Apache Hadoop* Cluster

NameNode

Job Assignment to Cluster

Master Node
JobTracker

nt
me s
ign ode
s
As aN
ta at
Da to D

Data Read

Data Write

Client

Metadata Operations
to Get Block Info

Ta
to sk A
Ta ss
sk ign
Tr m
ac en
ke t
rs

Slave Node

Slave Node

Slave Node

Slave Node

TaskTracker

TaskTracker

TaskTracker

TaskTracker

DataNode

DataNode

DataNode

DataNode

Map

Reduce

Map

Reduce

Map

Reduce

Map

Reduce

Data Replication on Multiple Nodes

Jobs are orchestrated by the master node and processed on the slave nodes.

Hadoop Infrastructure: Big Data Storage and Networking

Hadoop clusters are enhanced by dramatic improvements in
mainstream compute and storage resources and are complemented
by 10 gigabit Ethernet (10 GbE) solutions. The increased bandwidth
associated with 10 GbE is critical to importing and replicating large
data sets across servers. Intel Ethernet 10 Gigabit Converged
Network Adapters provide high-throughput connections, and Intel
Solid-State Drives (SSDs) are high-performance, high-throughput

15 Intel IT Center Planning Guide | Big Data

hard drives for raw storage. To enhance efficiency, storage needs

to support advanced capabilities such as compression, encryption,
automated tiering of data, data deduplication, erasure coding, and
thin provisioningall of which are supported with the Intel Xeon
processor E5 family today.
Get the guide to building balanced, cost-effective Hadoop clusters
on 10 GbE.

Intel Architecture: High-Performance Clusters

Using Intel Xeon processor E5 family-based servers as the baseline server platform for the cluster, a team of Intel big data, network, and storage
experts measured Apache Hadoop* performance results for various combinations of networking and storage components. In general, the following
define good, better, and best performance options for Intel-based infrastructure for your big data environment. (Note that certain variables could
impact results for your data center.)

Performance

Server

Networking

Storage

Good

Intel Xeon processor E5 family

Gigabit Ethernet
(GbE) or 10 GbE

Hard drives

Better

Intel Xeon processor E5 family

10 GbE

Hard drives and solid-state drives (SSDs)

with tiered storage capabilities

Best

Intel Xeon processor E5 family

10 GbE

SSDs

Get more detail about the performance of each platform combination.

Optimize and Tune for

Best Performance
Intel is a major contributor to open-source initiatives such as
Linux*, OpenStack*, KVM, and Xen* software. Intel has also
devoted resources to Hadoop analysis, testing, and performance
characterizations, both internally and with fellow travelers such
as HP, Super Micro, and Cloudera. Through these technical efforts,
Intel has observed many practical trade-offs in hardware, software,
and system settings that have implications in the data center.
Designing the solution stack to maximize productivity, limit energy
consumption, and reduce total cost of ownership can help you
optimize resource utilization while minimizing operational costs.
The settings for the Hadoop environment are a key factor in
getting the full benefit from the rest of the hardware and software
solutions. Based on extensive benchmark testing in the lab and
at customer sites using Intel processor-based architecture, Intels
optimization and tuning recommendations for the Hadoop system
can help you configure and manage your Hadoop environment for
both performance and cost.

16
Intel IT Center Planning Guide | Big Data

Getting the settings right requires significant up-front time,

because requirements for each enterprise Hadoop system will vary
depending on the job or workload. The time spent optimizing for
your specific workloads will pay off not only in better performance,
but in a lower total cost of ownership for the Hadoop environment.

Benchmarking
Benchmarking is the quantitative foundation for measuring the
efficiency of any computer system. Intel developed the HiBench
suite as a comprehensive set of benchmark tests for Hadoop
environments.8 The individual measures represent important Hadoop
workloads with a mix of hardware usage characteristics. HiBench
includes microbenchmarks as well as real-world Hadoop applications
representative of a wider range of data analytics such as search
indexing and machine learning. HiBench 2.1 is now available as open
source under Apache License 2.0 at https://github.com/hibench/
HiBench-2.1.

HiBench: The Details

Intels HiBench suite looks at 10 workloads in four categories.

Category

Workload

Description

Microbenchmarks

Sort

This workload sorts its binary input data, which is generated using the Apache Hadoop*
RandomTextWriter example.
Representative of real-world MapReduce jobs that transform data from one format to another.

WordCount

This workload counts the occurrence of each word in the input data, which is generated using
Hadoop* RandomTextWriter.
Representative of real-world MapReduce jobs that extract a small amount of interesting data
from a large data set.

Web search

TeraSort

A standard benchmark for large-size data sorting that is generated by the TeraGen program.

Enhanced
DFSIO

Tests Apache* HDFS* system throughput of a Hadoop cluster.

Apache
Nutch*
Indexing

This workload tests the indexing subsystem in Nutch*, a popular Apache open-source search
engine. The crawler subsystem in the Nutch engine is used to crawl an in-house Wikipedia*
mirror and generates 8.4 GB of compressed data (for about 2.4 million web pages) total as
workload input.

Computes the aggregated bandwidth by sampling the number of bytes read or written at fixed
time intervals in each map task.

Large-scale indexing system is one of the most significant uses of MapReduce (for example, in
Google* and Facebook* platforms).

Machine learning

Page Rank

This workload is an open-source implementation of the page-rank algorithm, a link-analysis

algorithm used widely in Web search engines.

K-Means
Clustering

Typical application area of MapReduce for large-scale data mining and machine learning (for
example, in Google and Facebook platforms).
K-Means is a well-known clustering algorithm.

Bayesian
Classification

Typical application area of MapReduce for large-scale data mining and machine learning (for
example, in Google and Facebook platforms).
This workload tests the naive Bayesian (a well-known classification algorithm for knowledge
discovery and data mining) trainer in the Apache Mahout* open-source machine learning library.

Analytical query

Apache Hive*
Join

This workload models complex analytic queries of structured (relational) tables by computing
the sum of each group over a single read-only table.

Hive*
Aggregation

This workload models complex analytic queries of structured (relational) tables by computing
both the average and sum for each group by joining two different tables.

17 Intel IT Center Planning Guide | Big Data

Five Steps and a Checklist: Get Started

with Your Big Data Analytics Project
If youve read this far, you now have a good understanding of the IT landscape for big data, its potential value to organizations, and the
emerging technologies that can help you get insights out of these unstructured data resources. Plus, you have a good overview of the
basics for getting the right infrastructure in place and running smoothly to support your Hadoop initiatives.
You can get started with your big data analytics project by following these five steps.

Step 1: Work with your business users to articulate the big opportunities.
Identify and collaborate with business users (analysts, data scientists, marketing professionals, and so on) to find the best business
opportunities for big data analytics in your organization. For example, consider an existing business problemespecially one that is
difficult, expensive, or impossible to accomplish with your current data sources and analytics systems. Or consider a problem that has
never been addressed before because the data sources are new and unstructured.
Prioritize your opportunity list and select a project with a discernible return on investment.
Determine the skills you need to successfully accomplish your initiative.

Step 2: Do your research to get up to speed on the technology.

Talk with your peers in IT.
Take advantage of Intel IT Center resources for big data.
Understand vendor offerings.
Take tutorials and examine user documentation offered by Apache.

Step 3: Develop use case(s) for your project.

Identify the use cases required to carry out your project.
Map out data flows to help define what technology and big data capabilities are required to solve the business problem.
Decide what data to include and what to leave out. Identify only the strategic data that will lead to meaningful insight.
Determine how data interrelates and the complexity of the business rules.
Identify the analytical queries and algorithms required to generate the desired outputs.

18 Intel IT Center Planning Guide | Big Data

Step 4: Identify gaps between current- and future-state capabilities.

What additional data quality requirements will you have for collecting, cleansing, and aggregating data into usable formats?
What data governance policies will need to be in place for classifying data; defining its relevance; and storing, analyzing, and
accessing it?
What infrastructure capabilities will need to be in place to ensure scalability, low latency, and performance?
How will data be presented to users? Findings need to be delivered in an easy-to-understand way to a variety of business users,
from senior executives to information professionals.

Step 5: Develop a test environment for a production version.

Adapt reference architectures to your enterprise. Intel is working with leading partners to develop reference architectures that can help
as part of the Intel Cloud Builders program around big data use cases.
Define the presentation layer, analytics application layer, data warehousing, and if applicable, private- or public-based cloud
data management.
Determine the tools users require to present results in a meaningful way. User adoption of tools will significantly influence the overall
success of your project.

19 Intel IT Center Planning Guide | Big Data

Intel Resources for Learning More

About Big Data

Big Data Analytics (Collection Page)

This web page aggregates key Intel resources that can help you implement your own big data initiatives.
Visit this page in the Intel IT Center for planning guides, peer research, vendor solution information, and
real-world case studies.
intel.com/bigdata

Big Data Mining in the Enterprise for Better Business Intelligence

This white paper from Intel IT describes how Intel is putting in place the systems and skills for analyzing big
data to drive operational efficiencies and competitive advantage. Intel IT, in partnership with Intel business
groups, is deploying several proofs of concept for a big data platform, including malware detection, chip
design validation, market intelligence, and a recommendation system.
intel.com/content/www/us/en/it-management/intel-it-best-practices/mining-big-data-In-the-enterprisefor-better-business-intelligence.html

Inside IT: Big Data

In this podcast, Moty Fania, who leads Intels strategy team for big data for business intelligence, talks
about developing the necessary skills and the right platform to deal with big data.
http://connectedsocialmedia.com/intel/5773/inside-it-big-data/

Peer Research: Big Data Analytics

Read the results of a survey of 200 IT managers that provide insights into how organizations are using big
data analytics today, including what organizations need to move forward and what the research means for
the IT industry. Highlights are reported in the video IT Managers Speak Out about Big Data Analytics.
intel.com/content/www/us/en/big-data/data-insights-peer-research-report.html

Big Thinkers on Big Data

A series of interviews with thought leaders about big data, including LiveRamp CEO Auren Hoffman on the
big data revolution driving business competition; Forrester Principal Analyst Mike Gualtieri on whats next;
and Cognito CEO Joshua Feast on big data, human behavior, and business outcomes.
intel.com/content/www/us/en/big-data/big-thinkers-on-big-data.html

20 Intel IT Center Planning Guide | Big Data

About Hadoop
Software

Apache Hadoop Spotlights

Visit this page to hear from Apache Hadoop open-source community experts explaining how software
components of the Hadoop stack work and where future development will lead. Podcasts of interviews are
with Alan Gates (Hortonworks) on HCatalog and Pig, Konstantin Shvachko (AltoScale) on HDFS, Deveraj Das
(Hortonworks) on MapReduce, and Carl Steinbach (Cloudera) on Hive.
intel.com/content/www/us/en/big-data/big-data-apache-hadoop-framework-spotlights-landing.html

Intel Cloud Builders Guide to Cloud Design and Deployment on Intel Platforms:
Apache* Hadoop*
This reference architecture is for organizations that want to build their own cloud computing infrastructure,
including Apache Hadoop clusters to manage big data. It includes steps for setting up the deployment at
your data center lab environment and contains details on Hadoop topology, hardware, software, installation
and configuration, and testing. Implementing this reference architecture will help you get started building
and operating your own Hadoop infrastructure.
intelcloudbuilders.com/docs/Intel_Cloud_Builders_Hadoop.pdf

Optimizing Hadoop* Deployments

This white paper provides guidance to organizations as they plan Hadoop deployments. Based on
extensive lab testing with Hadoop software at Intel, it describes best practices for establishing server
hardware specifications, discusses the server software environment, and provides advice on configuration
and tuning that can improve performance.
intel.com/content/www/us/en/cloud-computing/cloud-computing-optimizing-hadoop-deploymentspaper.html

Additional
Resources

Big Data: Harnessing a Game-Changing Asset

This report from the Economist Intelligence Unit and sponsored by SAS looks at big data and its impact
on companies. The survey examined the organizational characteristics of companies already adept at
extracting value from the data and found a strong link between effective data management and financial
performance. These companies can provide models for how organizations need to evolve to effectively
manage and gain value from big data.
sas.com/resources/asset/SAS_BigData_final.pdf

The Forrester Wave: Enterprise Hadoop Solutions, Q1 2012

This report by James Kobielus at Forrester reviews 13 enterprise Hadoop solutions providers, applying
a 15-criteria evaluation to each. Leaders include Amazon Web Services, IBM, EMC Greenplum, MapR,
Cloudera, and Hortonworks.
forrester.com/The+Forrester+Wave+Enterprise+Hadoop+Solutions+Q1+2012/quickscan/-/ERES60755

21 Intel IT Center Planning Guide | Big Data

Endnotes
1. Gens, Frank. IDC Predictions 2012: Competing for 2020. IDC (December
2011). http://cdn.idc.com/research/Predictions12/Main/downloads/
IDCTOP10Predictions2012.pdf
2. Big Data Infographic and Gartner 2012 Top 10 Strategic Tech
Trends. Business Analytics 3.0 (blog) (November 11, 2011).
http://practicalanalytics.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/big-datainfographic-and-gartner-2012-top-10-strategic-tech-trends/
3. Global Internet Traffic Projected to Quadruple by 2015. The Network
(press release) (June 1, 2011). http://newsroom.cisco.com/press-releasecontent?type=webcontent&articleId=324003
4. Big Data: The Next Frontier for Innovation, Competition, and
Productivity. McKinsey Global Institute (May 2011). mckinsey.com/
Insights/MGI/Research/Technology_and_Innovation/Big_data_The_
next_frontier_for_innovation.pdf
5. Peer Research on Big Data Analytics: Intels IT Manager Survey on
How Organizations Are Using Big Data. Intel (August 2012). intel.com/
content/www/us/en/big-data/data-insights-peer-research-report.html

22 Intel IT Center Planning Guide | Big Data

6. Nutch* software was initially an independent open-source project

originated by Doug Cutting and Mike Cafarella. In 2005, Nutch began
being managed by the Apache Software Foundation, first as a
subproject of Apache Lucene* search software, and then in 2010 as a
top-level project of the Apache Software Foundation. Source: Nutch
Joins Apache Incubator (press release). Apache Software Foundation
(January 2005).
nutch.apache.org/#January+2005%3A+Nutch+Joins+Apache+Incubator
7. Hadoop Hits Primetime with Production Release. Datanami (January 6,
2012). datanami.com/datanami/2012-01-06/hadoop_hits_primetime_
with_production_release.html
8. Huang, Shengsheng, Jie Huang, Jinquan Dai, Tao Xie, Bo Huang. The
HiBench Benchmark Suite: Characterization of the MapReduce-Based
Data Analysis. IEEE (March 2010).

More from the Intel IT Center

Planning Guide: Getting Started with Big Data is brought to you by the Intel IT Center, Intels program for IT
professionals. The Intel IT Center is designed to provide straightforward, fluff-free information to help IT pros
implement strategic projects on their agenda, including virtualization, data center design, cloud, and client and
infrastructure security. Visit the Intel IT Center for:
Planning guides, peer research, and solution spotlights to help you implement key projects
Real-world case studies that show how your peers have tackled the same challenges you face
Information on how Intels own IT organization is implementing cloud, virtualization, security,
and other strategic initiatives
Information on events where you can hear from Intel product experts as well as from Intels
own IT professionals

Learn more at intel.com/ITCenter.

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