# Pentaho, big data, and Hadoop

The term big data applies to very large, complex, or dynamic datasets that need to be stored and managed over a long time. To derive benefits from big data, you need the ability to access, process, and analyze data as it is being created. However, the size and structure of big data makes it very inefficient to maintain and process it using traditional relational databases.

Big data solutions re-engineer the components of traditional databases—data storage, retrieval, query, processing—and massively scales them.


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