For a job where the starting annual salary is typically reported to be in the range of $300,000, it would be hard to determine the level of education and practice needed to build a successful career. According to Cloudera, a US-based provider of tools and certifications based on Hadoop, this makes a formal industry certification extremely valuable, as it allows businesses to evaluate practitioners of the trade against a known yardstick.
The fact is that the job market has a number of openings but also a number of applicants, and this holds true for the big data industry too. Immense competition means that only a specialization on the CV of a candidate could keep him or her ahead in the quest for the best jobs. And this is where the need for Hadoop certifications comes in.
But what is Hadoop?
According to SearchData Management, Hadoop is “an open source distributed processing framework that manages data processing and storage for big data applications in scalable clusters of computer servers.” It falls bang in the center of big data technologies for advanced analytics, which makes it useful for big data professionals working on predictive analytics, data mining, machine learning and other initiatives.
Why is Hadoop needed? Primarily because of the ability it has to process and store different types of data, making it a great fit for requirements of the big data industry. Here, you have not just huge amounts of data but also a mix of structured transaction data with semi structured and unstructured information.
Be it healthcare, finance, banking or e-commerce, Hadoop makes for extremely efficient analysis of vast amounts of data. Processing this data is key to generating useful insights, which is why the demand for professionals with Hadoop certifications is constantly on the rise. The fact is that by the end of 2020, Hadoop is expected to be processing nearly half the data of the world. This is why big data professionals are increasingly choosing to get certified in Hadoop.
Is it useful to get trained in Hadoop?
It definitely is Big data professionals undertaking a self-paced Hadoop training program can learn at their own pace, while the training institute is a great source of qualified, experienced trainers to deal with all queries. The institute is also helpful in preparing for the certification exams, clearing which is an important step in taking a big data career to the next level.
What skills does the certification test the candidate on?
A Hadoop certification typically tests the knowledge and proves the readiness of the candidate on the following:
- Knowledge of HDFS and MapReduce, key pillars of Hadoop
- Writing complex MapReduce programs in Java and other languages
- Creation of an efficient, easily deployable, scalable, and resilient Hadoop cluster
- Working knowledge of
- Data analytics using Hadoop components like Hive and Pig
- Best practices in development and debugging
- Advanced concepts like indexing and its usage
- Hadoop 2.0 skills like YARN concepts and principles
- Hands-on experience in working on Hadoop real-time projects
What are the advantages of getting certified?
The following reasons make Hadoop certifications a very popular choice:
- An increasing number of job postings in the big data industry make it mandatory for the professional to be a certified Hadoop developer.
- Certified Hadoop professionals earn significantly higher pay packages than those who do not possess such certifications. Data from Indeed suggests that a certified Hadoop Administrator can earn an average salary of $123,000 per year.
- For candidates looking to move to a career in Hadoop from a different technical background or even a non-technical background, the certification can help to accelerate career growth.
- The certification is undeniable proof that the candidate has hands-on experience with the technology.
Thus, for professionals looking to make a career in big data in 2020, getting certified in Hadoop could be just the step needed for success.
