"Is it possible to derive 10 times more value from data than we can now?" asked Luke Lonergan, co-founder and chief technology officer of Greenplum (now part of EMC). "Definitely yes, by using the data, which is usually neglected or not processed due to technical constraints."

Most often mentioned at the forum was Apache Hadoop technology, a distributed computing architecture capable of automatically replicating data to numerous nodes, as well as searching and analyzing the data across all of them. Based on Google MapReduce technology, Hadoop enables the analysis of petabytes of unstructured data distributed across a cluster not necessarily made up of high-end servers. The technology is used in many high-profile companies, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Apple, Amazon and Yahoo. Not surprisingly, almost every company that had its executives present keynote speeches at the forum also stated its support for Hadoop in some form or other.

In general, the forum earned very high praise from its attendees despite the fact that no keynote speaker could provide an example of a finished project in the area of big data. Hopefully, the next forum will highlight not only new approaches and technologies but also their practical implementations, including in Russian businesses.