For this study, we'll choose the world of Real Time Analytics. You will learn about the challenges in real-time data, and how they can be solved with scalability in mind. But first, let's talk about analytics, Small data, Medium data, and Big data.
Small data is when you have enough data to process, but fits into a single machine. Any processing and analysis you want to run can finish in a reasonable amount of time. Of course term "reasonable" may refer to different amount of time depending on your business needs.
For example, if we want to generate a daily report, it is reasonable to assume that we're still okay with it taking around 30 minutes to complete. This is because we will still have 47 other tries to make it happen (we have 48 half hours within a 24 hour day).
However, it is unreasonable to agree to a job or series of interdependent jobs that take more than, or very close to, 24 hours. In this case, you will seek to scale out of your single machine or workstation...