Cloud Enabled Big Data Computing: Trends and Future Directions

Abstract

The rapid digital transformation of society has led to the generation of vast volumes of data from diverse sources, creating what is known as Big Data. Managing and extracting valuable insights from this data has become essential for achieving competitive advantage. Big Data analytics enables organizations to mine structured and unstructured data—both private and public—to understand customer behaviour, forecast demands, and optimize resources. However, implementing Big Data analytics remains complex and resource-intensive due to the need for advanced infrastructure, costly tools, and expert knowledge. Cloud computing offers a promising solution by providing scalable, elastic, and cost-effective resources for analytics through a pay-as-you-go model. This paper surveys key approaches, environments, and technologies that support Big Data analytics in cloud platforms. It highlights the benefits and challenges of integrating analytics with cloud services and discusses both technical and non-technical issues, including scalability, cost-efficiency, and governance. Finally, the paper identifies research gaps and proposes future directions for developing efficient, cloud-enabled Big Data analytics solutions.