While attending TechEd Europe in Amsterdam last month, I was able to attend a session on the topic of big data by Gert Drapers, a principal software architect on the SQL Server team at Microsoft. His session, entitled “Big Data, Big Deal?” was based on content by David J. DeWitt and Rimma Nehme from their SQL Pass 2011 keynote, and sought to clarify the definition of big data and Microsoft’s role in the space.