As volumes of Big Data increase, the ability of a business to take advantage of it will be a strategic advantage. By making decisions faster than competitors will be key to survival. The CIO needs to understand HOW decisions are made and put the ducks in a row to get the right data, get the right tools, and, most importantly, present to management in a way that is USEFUL. I have picked a few key issues to discuss.
Distributed infrastructure and software to be available to the users.
Vendors are trying to promote cloud analytics. SAS Institute Inc. has a new version of its core analytics platform that supports public or private cloud deployments. IBM has a procurement services contract with cosmetics maker L'Oreal USA using a cloud-based analytics component.

Look at your top ten products to see what can be done first. Initiate a “pilot program” to analyze your top ten products.
A short list of what must be done before utilizing cloud database software or services include: (1) integration with on-premises databases and applications; (2) making sure enough network bandwidth is available for the business users. It is a “no-brainer” if company is already running cloud-based applications and is already in the “Big Data” mold. Database location should be no issue to end users. No reason why that place can't be the Cloud.

Legislation that requires information on sources makes the Cloud challenging.
Lots of IT managers still remain reluctant to send important business data outside the corporate firewall. Plus, privacy laws and security regulations, particularly in Europe, even restrict where data can be kept. Cloud providers, even those with data centers in various locations, have addressed concerns and can support the security and privacy and laws in place. My feeling is that they are more secure than most corporate networks. THEIR BUSINESS DEMANDS IT. Just make sure you determine their security and compliance requirements up front and work closely with providers to ensure successful implementations. The number of available products and services has expanded significantly, as have their capabilities, reliability and application support.

The primary business drivers for adopting cloud-based databases are: cost savings, flexibility, reduced database administration / systems management requirements. Another common driver is a decision by corporate and IT executives that deploying and managing database technologies in-house isn't strategic to a company's business and can be farmed out to a service provider.

The deployment flexibility from cloud computing plays a part in the ROI equation. With cloud database services, organizations can scale their database use up or down according to their business requirements. This takes care of needing additional technology resources, buying new hardware and software, wondering what to do with these resources if demands slow. Less administrative costs will help ROI. Many administrative and management duties move from internal database administrators to the Cloud providers.

A big breakthrough will be merging technology of traditional relational data bases and Big Data. If only “data scientists” have access to HADOOP, then Big Data will never expand like it should!