Report to President Recommends Big Data Strategy for Federal Agencies

A 119-page March 2011 report from the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) titled "Designing a Digital Future" notes that the Zettabyte Age is upon us because of a "proliferation of sensors and new data sources" that are causing exponential growth in data volumes, and concludes that  "every Federal agency needs to have a 'Big Data' strategy."

Big Data is defined as data sets whose size is beyond the ability of commonly used software tools to capture, manage and process in a reasonable timeframe.  Examples include Web logs, sensor networks, social media, telecommunication network detailed data, military surveillance, medical records, and video archives.

Key points made by the report:

• It is vital for government agencies to act now.
• Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) with shared-nothing relational databases should be explored.
• Programming frameworks including MapReduce (and NoSQL - although not mentioned) should be explored.
• The cloud infrastructure is essential to harness the value from Big Data.

Although the report does not mention NoSQL directly it's clear that NoSQL is already playing a part, as shown by intelligence community's interest in Cassandra.

Read more at: Report to the President: Every Federal Agency Needs a 'Big Data' Strategy