Getting Started with the Hadoop Framework

Abstract

Applications frequently require more resources than are available on an inexpensive (commodity) machine. Many organizations find themselves with business processes that no longer fit on a single, cost-effective computer. A simple but expensive solution has been to buy specialty machines that cost a lot of memory and have many CPUs. This solution scales as far as what is supported by the fastest machines available, and usually the only limiting factor is your budget. An alternative solution is to build a high-availability cluster, which typically attempts to look like a single machine and usually requires very specialized installation and administration services. Many high-availability clusters are proprietary and expensive.