Big Data systems (i.e., data-intensive applications) have become one of the key priority areas for all sorts of organizations (i.e., private or public). Big Data is usually characterized by huge amount of diverse set of data that cannot be easily (or timely) processed using the conventional data processing approaches and technologies. For example, the data coming from 9100 tweets per second or the data emitted from the jet engines of the aircraft of the 2500 flights that cross Atlantic every day. Data to Decisions (D2D), a new initiative under the Cooperative Research Centres Program, is aimed at inventing new and innovative techniques and technologies for supporting several functions of Big Data systems such as data capture and storage, data transmission, data curation, data analysis, and data visualization. One of the first projects of D2D CRC is designing a Reference Architecture (RA) for Defence Big Data Systems. Whilst there are already several dozens of references architectures for big data systems, one can question the needs of such an effort.Read More »D2D CRC Project on Reference Architecture for Defence Big Data Systems