The new world of work is changing and new skills will play an important role in your ability to gain entry into the future workforce. With that said, Udacity wants to ensure that you receive the most up-to-date training in the world of tech, and we’re excited to announce that we have refreshed our Data Streaming Nanodegree program. 

Data streaming is a big business. Several of your favorite streaming services — Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, etc. — are using and ingesting reams of data on a daily basis.  In fact, according to a Grand View Research report the global streaming market was worth $42.6 billion in 2019 and it’s expected to grow more than 20 percent per year and reach a total of $184.3 billion by 2027.

The most in-demand employees in this job market will be those who are equipped to help companies manage the transition to data streaming.

Data Streaming is a prime example of a cutting-edge skill that will give data engineers a significant advantage in their current role or in their pursuit of new opportunities, and there’s no better time to learn than now.

What is Data Streaming? 

Ben Goldberg, Data Streaming Nanodegree program instructor and staff engineer at SpotHero, offers a great explanation of the technology:

“Ingesting and processing mass volumes of data is very difficult. To deal with this influx, companies utilize stream processing to analyze data as it’s generated. Not only does this lessen the long-term processing burden for many companies, as the working dataset is smaller, but it also enables these companies to benefit from real-time analyses instead of long-running batch analyses that may only update once a day or once an hour.”

Data Streaming in Action

Consider for a moment the number of apps, websites, and other tools you use on a daily basis that leverage real-time data — from ride-sharing applications to web applications like Netflix, Google Maps, and more. The examples are nearly endless, and companies of all shapes and sizes are champing at the bit to optimize their use of data to better support their users and improve business.  

Financial institutions use data streaming to monitor the stock market and automatically initiate trades. Networking companies use it to track the performance of their hardware so they can do predictive maintenance, instead of waiting for their devices to break. 

Hospitals use streamed data to monitor a patient’s health and know immediately when anomalies in treatment are detected. 

These are unique examples of the wide range of industries looking to make the most of data streaming technology. That’s why there’s no better time than now to equip yourself with the skills companies need to take their data engineering practices to the next level.

What You’ll Learn in the Refreshed Data Streaming Course

The Data Streaming Nanodegree program is designed and taught by industry professionals with experience at the forefront of this new trend in data engineering. 

The projects in the Data Streaming Nanodegree program will prepare you to develop systems and applications capable of interpreting data immediately, and will do so using some of the premier tools in the field — Apache Spark, Kafka, Apache Streaming, and Kafka Streaming, to name a few.

Students who enroll in the Data Streaming Nanodegree program will learn the components of data streaming systems, and build a real-time analytics application. They’ll also actually compile real-time data and run analytics, as well as draw insights from reports generated by the streaming console, and demonstrate those skills by completing real-world projects that’ll showcase their abilities to prospective employers.

Specific projects include:

Project 1: Optimize Bus and Train Availability in Chicago Using Kafka

Stream public transit status using the Kafka ecosystem to build a stream processing application that shows the status of trains in real-time. 

After completing the project, students will be able to describe, explain, and utilize fundamental data streaming concepts and tools, including: Apache Kafka, Data Schemas and Apache Avro, Kafka Connect and REST Proxy, and KSQL.

Project 2: Evaluate Human Balance with Spark Streaming

Use Step Trending Electronic Data Interface (STEDI) data to feed anonymized risk scores of seniors losing their balance into a graph using Kafka Connect Redis Source events and Business events.

In this project, students will learn to build a continuous application with Structured Streaming, consume and process data from Apache Kafka, create a DataFrame as an aggregation of source DataFrames, and sink a composite DataFrame to Kafka.

Step Up Your Data Streaming Skills

With Udacity’s learn-by-doing approach you will get the skills you need to start a new career or excel in your current role.

Meet the demand for qualified professionals  and register today for the updated Data Streaming Nanodegree program.

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