Big data research has become an important discipline in information systems research. However, the flood of data being generated on the Internet is increasingly unstructured and non-numeric in the form of images and texts. Thus, research indicates that there is an increasing need to develop more efficient algorithms for treating mixed data in big data for effective decision making. In this paper, we apply the classical K-means algorithm to both numeric and categorical attributes in big data platforms. We first present an algorithm that handles the problem of mixed data. We then use big data platforms to implement the algorithm, demonstrating its functionalities by applying the algorithm in a detailed case study. This provides us with a solid basis for performing more targeted profiling for decision making and research using big data. Consequently, the decision makers will be able to treat mixed data, numerical and categorical data, to explain and predict phenomena in the big data ecosystem. Our research includes a detailed end-to-end case study that presents an implementation of the suggested procedure. This demonstrates its capabilities and the advantages that allow it to improve the decision-making process by targeting organizations’ business requirements to a specific cluster[s]/profiles[s] based on the enhancement outcomes.

The Small Files Problem in Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) is an ongoing challenge that has not yet been solved. However, various approaches have been developed to tackle the obstacles this problem creates. Properly managing the size of blocks in a file system is essential as it saves memory and computing time and may reduce bottlenecks. In this article, a new approach using a Hierarchical Clustering Algorithm is suggested for dealing with small files. The proposed method identifies the files by their structure and via a special Dendrogram analysis, and then recommends which files can be merged. As a simulation, the proposed algorithm was applied via 100 CSV files with different structures, containing 2–4 columns with different data types (integer, decimal and text). Also, 20 files that were not CSV files were created to demonstrate that the algorithm only works on CSV files. All data were analyzed via a machine learning hierarchical clustering method, and a Dendrogram was created. According to the merge process that was performed, seven files from the Dendrogram analysis were chosen as appropriate files to be merged. This reduced the memory space in the HDFS. Furthermore, the results showed that using the suggested algorithm led to efficient file management.