Hadoop in Action introduces the subject and teaches you how to write programs in the MapReduce style. It starts with a few easy examples and then moves quickly to show Hadoop use in more complex data analysis tasks. Included are best practices and design patterns of MapReduce programming. About the Technology Big data can be difficult to handle using traditional databases. Apache Hadoop is a NoSQL applications framework that runs on distributed clusters. This lets it scale to huge datasets. If you need analytic information from your data, Hadoop's the way to go. About the Book What's Inside Introduction to MapReduce Examples illustrating ideas in practice Hadoop's Streaming API Other related tools, like Pig and Hive About the Reader This book requires basic Java skills. Knowing basic statistical concepts can help with the more advanced examples. About the Author Chuck Lam is a Senior Engineer at RockYou! He has a PhD in pattern recognition from Stanford University. Quotes A guide for beginners, a source of insight for advanced users. - Philipp K. Janert, Principal Value, LLC A nice mix of the what, why, and how of Hadoop. - Paul Stusiak, Falcon Technologies Corp. Demystifies Hadoop. A great resource! - Rick Wagner, Acxiom Corp. Covers it all! Plus, gives you sweet extras no one else does. - John S. Griffin, Overstock.com An excellent introduction to Hadoop and MapReduce. - Kenneth DeLong, BabyCenter, LLC