The 4 Stages to Big Data Nirvana (In the Cloud)

Achieving big data "Nirvana" in the cloud involves a structured approach through four stages designed to optimize data management and analytics. Initially, companies face the challenge of disparate data silos across various systems, which complicates data access and increases dependency on IT for resource-intensive ETL projects. Introducing a "consumption layer" with a tool like Trino allows analysts to directly query data sources without knowing their location, thus bypassing IT bottlenecks and enhancing performance. This separation of compute and storage, facilitated by Trino, enables businesses to strategically move to cloud object storage using open data formats like ORC and Parquet, avoiding vendor lock-in. Ultimately, this transformation allows companies to efficiently scale storage and compute resources on demand, offering analysts seamless access to data while optimizing IT expenditures, thus reaching the ideal state of big data management in the cloud.