We’re back with a new episode of The Fantastic 12 of 2012: Behind the Scenes Series and this week we’re covering the hot topic of Big Data! In this episode, Saptak Sen, Senior Product Manager, recaps some the conversations he recently had with customers at the 2012 Strata Conference and the Gartner Business Intelligence Summit 2012. Saptak also talk about his own personal journey into the world of Big Data. Lastly, he explains (with a visual aid on his door) where Doug Cutting, creator of Hadoop, got the Hadoop name from.

Watch the episode below to hear what customers are saying about Big Data, their use of Hadoop, Saptak’s own journey into Big Data, and the origins of the Hadoop name!

Download The Fantastic 12 of SQL Server 2012 (PDF) and also watch all previous episodes here. Participate in the Twitter Contest that follows every episode of this series happens every Thursday at 10:30am PT, where you could win one of the new SQL Server T-Shirts of your choice!

Fantastic 12 of SQL Server 2012

8  Big Data Analytics & Data Warehousing
Achieve scale and flexibility with analytic and data warehouse solutions that offer massive scale at low cost

Structured, Unstructured, Real-Time

  • Platform for Any Data: Leverage a complete platform that supports structured, unstructured and real time data. SQL Server 2012 supports structured data on scalable relational database and data warehouse offerings, and unstructured data on an Enterprise-ready Hadoop distribution. StreamInsight™ is a dedicated engine for high velocity data such as web clickstreams.
  • Seamless Integration: Gain deep insights from all your data, through seamless integration between Hadoop and SQL Server 2012. First, bidirectional Hadoop connectors for SQL Server 2012 and Parallel Data Warehouse move data between Hadoop and SQL Server. Second, a new Hive ODBC Driver connects Hive directly to familiar Microsoft BI tools such as PowerPivot and Power View. Finally, interact with Hadoop data in Microsoft Excel™ thanks to a new Hive Add-in for Excel.

Massive Scale at Low Cost

  • Built-in Functionality: Scale data warehouses with built-in database features like Remote Blob Storage and partitioned tables that scale to 15,000 partitions and support large sliding window scenarios.
  • Support for Powerful Hardware: Gain high scale with support for up to 256 logical cores that helps enable high-performance for very large workloads or consolidation scenarios.
  • Parallel Data Warehouse: Scale to 600+ TB while maintaining high performance through massively parallel processing (MPP) architecture.

Complete BI Solution

  • Scalable OLAP: Deploy more than just breathtaking end user analytics tools, SQL Server continues to deliver end-to-end BI through easy to stand up and manage traditional OLAP and reporting cubes that are proven to scale into the 10s of TB.
  • Hardware and deployment options: Suit unique organizational needs with Fast Track configurations from 11 hardware vendors or software only solutions, reference architectures and appliances.

For more information on SQL Server 2012 and to download the trial version, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver