Database Reference
In-Depth Information
systems. One key aspect of scope management that often goes overlooked is
the use of data profiling very early in the process to flush out a couple key
issues:
• Can the data support the project expectations?
• How clean is the data, and what steps can be taken to improve it at the
source systems?
Additionally, you will need to identify the tools in the presentation layer to
ensure you have the appropriate data models to support the tool. Are you
going to query the data directly in Hadoop? If so, you need to ensure that
all your tools have a solution to allow it to connect to Hadoop. Even if you
establish connectivity to Hadoop, you may find that the end user experience
isn't as fast as you want it to be. Many architectures move some of the data
off of Hadoop and onto a secondary system such as SQL Server or SQL
Server Parallel Data Warehouse.
Finally, the presentation layer can be determined. If you are using Power
View, do you have the SharePoint infrastructure to host it? If not, are you
goingtobuildit?Determinethisend-to-endarchitectureupfrontasit'svital
to establishing the scope of the entire project to know what you are getting
into and what kind of buy-in from executives you'll be asking for.
Basing the Project Scope on Requirements
Developing the appropriate business requirements documentation is the
first step in assigning the appropriate scope to any project. All features of
the project should be mapped back to business requirements. But isn't this
big data where we just collect the data in Hadoop and figure out what we
wantthedataforlater?No.Everyprojectshouldhaveaninitialgoal;it'salso
more likely to get funded if the goal is already established. Base the project
scope on these goals and objectives.
One key advantage of the big data paradigm is that through the Schema
on Read paradigm we may be collecting additional data from sources and
storing it for longer periods of time so that we can find additional uses for
it. This will usually come out of additional use cases and future projects. For
thepurposesoftheprojectthatisbeingfunded,though,stickwiththebasics
and follow the plan.
