its not entirely obvious and you think its more complicated than it really is. you might want to try: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28982/simple-explanati

its not entirely obvious and you think its more complicated than it really is. you might want to try: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28982/simple-explanation-of-mapreduce http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28982/simple-explanation-... or a whole bunch of tech talks: http://vodpod.com/tag/mapreduce http://vodpod.com/tag/mapreduce the first 2 videos should give you a good overview