The National Institute of Standards and Technology ("NIST"), which we've written about at length in the past in connection with its ongoing data security and cloud computing related work, announced the formation of a Big Data Working Group today, with a "kick off" conference call this Wed., June 19, from 1-3pm EDT.  The group is spearheaded by co-chairs Bob Marcus and Wo Chang and will meet weekly  online and via phone conference on the road to producing draft deliverables by Sept. 2013. NIST's announcement highlights:

"Despite the widespread agreement on the opportunities and current limitations of Big Data, a lack of consensus on some important, fundamental questions is confusing potential users and holding back progress. What are the attributes that define Big Data solutions? How is Big Data different from the traditional data environments and related applications that we have encountered thus far? What are the essential characteristics of Big Data environments? How do these environments integrate with currently deployed architectures? What are the central scientific, technological, and standardization  challenges that need to be addressed to accelerate the deployment of robust Big Data solutions?"

Among announced deliverables are the development of: Big Data Definitions, Big Data Taxonomies, a Big Data Reference Architectures and a Big Data Technology Roadmap. General questions to the NIST Big Data Working Group can be sent to BigDataInfo@nist.gov

See you on the kick off call on Wednesday.