This document discusses designing a new big data platform to replace an existing complex and outdated one. It analyzes challenges with the current platform, including inability to keep up with business needs. The proposed new platform called Dredge would use abstraction layers to integrate big data tools in a loosely coupled and scalable way. This would simplify development and maintenance while supporting business goals. Key aspects of Dredge include declarative configuration, logical workflows, and plug-and-play integration of tools like HDFS, Hive, HBase, Kafka and Spark in a reusable and event-driven manner. The new platform aims to improve scalability, reduce costs and better support analytics needs over time.