Friday, April 25, 2014

Data Reservoir

Lately, there is a lot of talk about the role of Hadoop. And within that context a new term is coined: Data Reservoir. The reservoir reflects the intended purpose of collecting and the notion that it can be used at a later time. It is interesting to see if the term sticks. To my taste it should be more actionable, such as, Information Reservoir. Or it might be more blunt - Info Hoarder.

A while ago we built a file repository with a thin semantic layer. Only a portion of data was flowing to the Data Warehouse proper. And it also fed ad hoc statistical analysis. So the concept is not new and not technology-specific. But HDFS might be better suited for the task.

A reservoir (etymology: from French réservoir a "storehouse" ) is a natural or artificial lake, storage pond or impoundment from a dam which is used to store water.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservoir
reservoir (n.) Look up reservoir at Dictionary.com
1680s, "a place where something tends to collect," originally figurative, from French réservoir "storehouse," from Old French reserver "to reserve" (see reserve (n.)). Specific meaning "artificial basin to collect and store a large body of water" is from 1705.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=reservoir