Big data and cloud computing

Cloud computing is an extremely successful paradigm of service oriented computing and has revolutionized the way computing infrastructure is abstracted and used. Three most popular cloud paradigms include: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). The concept however can also be extended to Database as a Service and many more. Elasticity, pay-per-use, low upfront investment, low time to market , and transfer of risks are some of the major enabling features that make cloud computing a ubiquitous paradigm for deploying novel applications which were not economically feasible in a traditional enterprise infrastructure settings. This has seen a proliferation in the number of applications which leverage various cloud platforms, resulting in a tremendous increase in the scale of the data generated as well as consumed by such applications. Scalable database management systems (DBMS) -- both for update intensive application workloads, as well as decision support systems for descriptive and deep analytics -- are thus a critical part of cloud infrastructures.