Big Data – Relational Opens Its Mouth – Is It Going To Consume Hadoop? | Mike Ferguson's Blog

It’s worth following the link below to read the entire post, about how Hadoop, a linchpin of many NoSQL products and attitudes, now must coexist with SQL, and some of the most Hadoop-centric vendors are moving aggressively in this direction.  Here, I’ll just call attention to what sounds like an actual repository.  The pendulum swings back.

The point about this is that if you want to comnect to a mix of NoSQL DBMSs, Hadoop and Analytical RDBMSs as well as Data Warehouses, On-Line Transaction Processing Systems and other data then you very quickly start to need the ability to know where the data is in underlying systems.  A global catalog is needed so that software knows that it needs to invoke underlying MapReduce jobs to get at Data in Hadoop HDFS, or that it accesses it directly by bypassing MapReduce via Impala for example. 

Big Data – Relational Opens Its Mouth – Is It Going To Consume Hadoop? | Mike Ferguson's Blog

Obamacare: round two : Columbia Journalism Review

An appeal for information responsibility in journalism.

The Affordable Care Act, a.k.a Obamacare, is the law of the land, and the re-election of the president ensures that its far-reaching provisions will take effect as scheduled in 2014. What does that mean for journalists? It presents an opportunity—and an obligation—to deliver the clear and thorough reporting that was missing during the debate on the Act itself.

The politicians were not helpful then. Republicans demonized Obamacare, essentially a plan hatched in conservative think tanks and road-tested by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. The Democrats hid the football, de-emphasizing the mechanics of the law in an effort to minimize the risk that the requirement to have health insurance or face penalties might not win votes.

In the end, the media covered the law’s long, slow passage like a sporting event, without much explanation of how it would shape people’s lives. Here comes another chance.

Obamacare: round two : Columbia Journalism Review