I'm always a fan of moving beyond the buzz, so the new research from Nucleus Research, "Big Data: Beyond the Buzzwords," caught my eye.

Besides providing a quick, simple definition ("big data is all about creating, analyzing, and managing large data sets"), The 3-page report does a nice job distilling what's driving this trend. It also explains where enterprise applications are investing to embrace big data, and what other tools are needed within organizations to embrace big data.

Fortune magazine, on the other hand, says big data is suddenly sexy, and that is especially true if Google Trends is your tool of choice for measuring such a thing.

For an even-tempered reaction, consider what SAS CMO Jim Davis said at a recent event:

There is too much concern and hype about Big Data (data has been getting bigger since the 70's - this has not happened over night!), which distracts us from the real issues.

Some of those real issues are tackled in the Nucleus report, like what you can do to get ready for big data. According to Nucleus, you should:

1. Integrate data.
2. Research business-driven tools for big data.
3. Crowdsource to validate and improve your data.
4. Encourage collaboration between data analysts and business users.

From a terminology perspective, I predict the phrase Big Data is here to stay. It might be trendy and over-used, but it is a succinct way to sum up the convergence of many trends in our industry, including virtualization, cloud computing and social media content creation.