Big Data and Cloud Computing

If you've been engaged in cloud application development, you might be familiar with big data and cloud computing. These two terminologies work together to perform big data analytics in public cloud services. Big data and cloud computing are considered best practices for large quantities of data storage and cloud infrastructure.

Therefore, they are crucial to Software as a Service (SaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). In this article, we'll explain how big data differs from cloud computing and the relationship between the two terms. Also, well, explain the advantages and disadvantages of big data in the cloud.

The Difference between Big Data and Cloud Computing
While these two terms interact synergistically, they are technically different. Therefore, defining each idea is crucial before understanding how they relate.

• Big data – Large amounts of unstructured, structured, or semi-structured data sets. These data sets are too big to query or peruse on a computer. Also, big data is all about analytics, resulting from IoT sensors, user input, and sales data.
• Cloud computing – The processing of anything is referred to as cloud computing. It includes processing big data analytics on the cloud, which contains high-powered servers that query enormous data sets.

Basically, big data is the large sets of collected data, while cloud computing is a mechanism to perform a specific operation on that data.

The Relationship between Big Data and Cloud Computing
Big data and cloud computing go hand-in-hand regarding storage, accessibility and security. Since physical infrastructure is not adequate to store a large amount of data, cloud computing ships in order to provide secure, reliable, and scalable storage units to store big data. Also, cloud services like IaaS, SaaS, and PaaS enable access to big data.

Another great connection between these two terms is data security. Secure storage is an issue in today’s world of technology, and cloud computing offers various levels of security.

Pros and Cons of Big Data in the Cloud
Cloud computing has several benefits for all businesses. Here are the most substantial and immediate ones of big data in the cloud:
Pros

• Accessibility – As a global footprint, clouds allow services and resources to be deployed in many regions worldwide. As a result, processing activities and data can take place anywhere the big data task is located.
• Scalability – Building a big data infrastructure provides unlimited physical space, budget to purchase and power. Unlike your typical data center that limits your business, you can leverage the huge volume offered by big data. Besides, the cloud can manage thousands of servers in a group of global data centers.
• Cost – Your business data center can consume a lot of money, paying for regular maintenance, various activities, power, and other bills. On the contrary, the cloud contains all those costs through a pay-per-use model. Only on-demand services and resources are made available.
• Resilience – When it comes to data storage, the cloud ensures reliability. It duplicates data to ensure that storage resources are highly available and durable.

While the benefits are good, it is also important to consider potential pitfalls. Below are the major disadvantages of using big data in the cloud:
Cons

• Storage costs – If your company has big data projects and you want to store data in the cloud, you might incur long-term charges. There is a fee that is done every month, and when you move data again, there is another additional fee. However, you can avoid unnecessary data charges by employing deletion policies. 
• Network dependence – Another disadvantage of big data in the cloud is the need to have network connectivity from the Local Area Network (LAN) to your cloud provider’s network. While you might experience cloud inaccessibility or increased latency, big data wouldn’t be affected similarly. However, such outages should be considered when using big data in the cloud.

 
Both cloud computing and big data contribute a lot to digital society. They benefit people with ideas and want their businesses to succeed but have limited resources. Not to mention the collaboration of the two terms can bring several benefits to your business. Contact us on WhatsApp at +62 811-3900-2626 to learn more.