CRN Exclusive: 20 Tough Big Data Questions For Pivotal's Paul Maritz

What distinguishes this new generation of [big data] computing?

It is a new class of applications that are characterized by needing to look at much bigger data sets, deal[ing] with real-time data, and being able to react in real time to that data -- so bigger data sets that are coming from more sources, ... from both structured and unstructured sources, ... from sources both inside your enterprise and outside your enterprise, and then data that is arriving in large quantities very quickly where you have to react to it in real time and then be able to build experiences that drive that. So it is a new class of applications where you want to be using much larger data sets and data that is constantly coming in and reacting in real time.