This document provides an introduction to big data and the installation of a single-node Apache Hadoop cluster. It defines key terms like big data, Hadoop, and MapReduce. It discusses traditional approaches to handling big data like storage area networks and their limitations. It then introduces Hadoop as an open-source framework for storing and processing vast amounts of data in a distributed fashion using the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) and MapReduce programming model. The document outlines Hadoop's architecture and components, provides an example of how MapReduce works, and discusses advantages and limitations of the Hadoop framework.