Metis to Offer Intensive Hadoop, Spark Training
Metis, which bills itself as "an accredited intensive data science bootcamp," is launching a new big data processing course, teaching students how to work with Hadoop and Spark, two of today’s most widely used distributed computing paradigms. As we've reported, enterprises are finding tools like Hadoop hard to work with. Gartner, Inc.'s 2015 Hadoop Adoption Study, involving 284 Gartner Research Circle members, found that only 125 respondents who completed the whole survey had already invested in Hadoop or had plans to do so within the next two years. The study found that there are difficulties in implementing Hadoop.
In the Metis course, both Hadoop and Spark will be run off of Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon’s cloud service, as knowledge of AWS is a data science skill set increasingly sought after by employers. Here are more details.
2015 has been a breakout year for Spark in particular, which saw attendance at its user conferences grow 156%, to almost 3,000. Furthermore, according to well-respected industry analyst O'Reilly, knowing Spark “could apparently have more of an impact on salary than getting a PhD.”
In the first section of the Metis course, students will learn and discuss key Hadoop concepts such as the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) and MapReduce, which are ways to organize files and directories. In the second half of the course, students will learn Spark basics such as Resilient Distributed Datasets (RDDs), and then advance to more sophisticated topics such as Spark for machine learning and Spark streaming, essentially real-time processing. Upon completion of the course, Metis claims that students will have an understanding of when to use distributed computing paradigms, Hadoop and Spark, comfort writing Hadoop and Spark applications in Python -- a versatile programming language -- familiarity with the Hadoop and Spark ecosystems, and the various tools that come with the distributions.
“Metis is looking forward to launching our Big Data with Hadoop and Spark course this winter. Breaking down big data is increasingly important to businesses trying to better understand their customers and improve their performance, and the employees who can help do this will continue to be in high demand,” said Jason Moss, co-founder and general manager of Metis. “As the need for data scientists grows, Metis is excited to continue delivering new course offerings to provide industry professionals with the skills needed to help them succeed.”
According to Forbes, the demand for computer system analysts who have experience with big data increased by almost 90 percent between 2013 and 2014, making it one of America’s fastest growing job categories. The magazine also reports that the average advertised salary for employees with this experience hovers around $105,000, up $2,000 from the start of 2015.
The Metis 36-hour course launches January 19, 2016 and is open to beginners, but the company says that students should have experience with Python and the Unix/Linux command line and be comfortable installing open source software on Mac or PC. Applicants should also have some knowledge of Python and basic experience with SQL. The course will be held Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6:30pm - 9:30pm at Metis’ NYC headquarters at, 27 East 28th Street, 3rd Floor, where the data science bootcamp also takes place. To enroll in the course, prospective students can visit www.thisismetis.com.