Big Plateaus of Big Data on the Big Island

In ancient texts, 40 was a magic number. It meant a “lot” or “a long time.” 40 years represented the time it took for a new generation to arise. A look back at 40 years of VLDB suggests that this applies to database researchers as well – the young researchers of the early VLDBs are now the old folks of the database world, and a new generation is creating afresh. Over this period many plateaus of “Big Data” have challenged the database community and been conquered. But there is still no free lunch – database research is really the science of trade-offs, many of which are no different today than 40 years ago. And of course the evolution of hardware technology continues to swing the trade-off pendulum while enabling new plateaus to be reached. Todd will take a look back at customer big data plateaus of the past. He will look at where we are today, then use his crystal ball and the lessons of the past to extrapolate the next several plateaus – how they will be the same and how will they be different. Along the way we will have a little fun with some VLDB and Teradata history.