Tableau and big data
Perhaps the first challenge of big data is defining it adequately. It’s a term so widely used as to be almost meaningless. For example, some may refer to data exceeding 1,048,576 rows as big data (which is the row limit in Microsoft 365, Excel 2019, Excel 2016, Excel 2013, Excel 2010, and Excel 2007), while others would only apply the term to datasets in the multiple-petabyte range. Definitions found on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_data) are so broad as to encompass both of these examples.
True, it is probably simplistic to consider data that merely exceeds Excel’s row limitation as big data; nevertheless, from the perspective of an individual for whom Excel is the traditional data-processing application, the preceding definition fits.
Talking about big data goes hand in hand with parallel processing. For Tableau and working with big data, it is very important to know the partitions that your IT team has put in place for...
