Hadoop: Where to Find Good Introductions

by Sam Dean - May. 26, 2010Comments (0)

We've covered the open source Apache project Hadoop before from many angles, and it continues to pave its way into new applications that go way beyond the search apps it was originally used for. There is a commercial open source company, Cloudera, that supports and evangelizes Hadoop, and mainstream organizations and businesses ranging from the New York Times to IBM are using it.

However, Hadoop isn't the easiest software framework to understand. Hadoop can be thought of as an open source version of MapReduce, Google's secret weapon in sifting and mining huge data sets. Businesses are interested in it for data mining and other applications. That's why it's worth checking on on a very detailed and approachable IBM Developerworks series on getting started with Hadoop.

If you're unfamiliar with IBM Developerworks, it houses many useful tutorials and whitepapers on technical topics, quite a few of them open source-focused, as seen down the left rail here. The Developerworks Hadoop introduction begins with information on setting Haddop up, testing it to get a sense of its capabilities, and much more. At the bottom of the tutorial, you'll find a long list of links for going further with Hadoop.

For more introductory information on Hadoop, it's worth checking in with Cloudera. Contrary to popular belief, Cloudera offers much more than just Hadoop support. It offers training, and its own distribution of Hadoop. You can find many of Cloudera's educational and introductory resources here.