From MIT to MapR, Big Data Training is Becoming Easily Accessible
If you're looking for work on the techs scene, hardly any trend is drawing more attention than Big Data. And, when talking Big Data, the subject of Hadoop inevitably comes up, but Spark is becoming an increasingly popular topic, too. IBM and other companies have made huge commitments to Spark, and workers who have both Hadoop and Spark skills are much in demand.
With that in mind MapR Technologies, MIT and other providers are offering Hadoop and Spark training, which is free in several cases. Often, the training is available online and on-demand, so you can learn at your own pace. Here is our updated look at some of the Big Data training options you can pursue.
EdX, the non-profit online learning organization with a huge roster of global institutions under the xConsortium participating, has been a leader in the free online education arena for several years. A couple of years ago, the organization released the code for its learning platform under an open source license. And, MIT has been leveraging the platform to deliver free online courses, as we covered here.
You can visit MIT's microsite to see its current offerings of courses delivered via the open-sourced education platform developed by edX. You can find a "Tackling the Challenges of Big Data" course, and much more. Definitely worth a look.
Meanwhile, with its sights set on making Hadoop training for developers and administrators easy to complete, Hadoop distribution provider MapR Technologies has unveiled several free on-demand training offerings. You can visit here to see the full list of courses, certifications and to sign up for free classes.
MapR's leaders are wrapping Spark into the teaching curriculum as well.
Cloudera also has an expanded Apache Spark training curriculum, although many of its classes are available for small fees. For more information about the courses on Spark and to register for a class, visit university.cloudera.com.
According to Cloudera:
"Cloudera University’s three-day Spark course enables participants to build complete, unified big data applications combining batch, streaming, and interactive analytics on all their data. With Spark, developers can write sophisticated parallel applications for faster business decisions and better user outcomes, applied to a wide variety of use cases, architectures, and industries. This course is part of the developer learning path."
The three-day Spark course from Cloudera is available online, on demand.
These training programs promise to make a difference. According to Nick Heudecker and Lisa Kart, research directors, Gartner Inc., “As more organizations invest in big data, the shortage of available skills and capabilities will become more acute. Instead of facing a difficult recruiting market, organizations should focus on adapting available skills and engaging with established service providers to fill the skills gap.”