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192 Big Data Analytics for Connected Vehicles and Smart Cities Building a Data Lake 193

that our business is going to change. Perhaps this is the ideal opportunity to
take a close look at how we organize for success?

9.10 Summary

The creation of a data lake requires the application of hardware and software
and suitable organizational change. To attain the full benefits of the data lake, it
is necessary to use the data, the analytics, and the new insight and understand-
ing that is made available to develop responses, strategies, and actions that will
support the delivery of smart city transportation services. This chapter provides
a detailed definition of a data lake, along with an exposition of the various ele-
ments that are brought into play when a data lake operates. The chapter aims
to explain the term data lake and to show, at a planning level, how it can be
implemented. However, it does not provide guidance on the selection of spe-
cific technologies, as there are many such options. This is beyond the scope of
this book.
The chapter also provides an overview regarding the challenges that are
likely to be encountered in the creation of a data lake for a smart city, along with
a summary of the likely benefits that can be achieved by adopting the data lake
strategy. Advances in data science have enabled us to aggregate data in ways that
were not possible in the past, allowing data to combine in new and interesting
ways, while providing an enterprise- or organization-wide horizon on the data.
The innovative nature of the data lake also presents an opportunity to
reevaluate the shape and structure of smart city and transportation organiza-
tional arrangements, with respect to data analysis. Consequently, the chapter
concludes with some initial thoughts on how organizational fine-tuning might
be achieved using the data lake and data analytics as an important tool in the
process. It is difficult to overemphasize the importance of the pilot project ap-
proach and the methodology. Many of the technologies and the resulting in-
sights will be alien to smart city and transportation professionals, and the con-
duct of a pilot provides an opportunity for awareness and understanding that
will support the extraction of the best possible value from the data lake invest-
ment. The approach also supports a focus on actionable insights and enables
smart city and transportation staff to maintain their focus on transportation
service delivery and results.

References

[1] Hadoop definition, tech target.com http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/defini-
tion/Hadoop, retrieved January 17, 2017.