  The increasing volumes of astronomical data require practical methods for
data exploration, access and visualisation. The Hierarchical Progressive Survey
(HiPS) is a HEALPix based scheme that enables a multi-resolution approach to
astronomy data from the individual pixels up to the whole sky. We highlight the
decisions and approaches that have been taken to make this scheme a practical
solution for managing large volumes of heterogeneous data. Early implementors
of this system have formed a network of HiPS nodes, with some 250 diverse data
sets currently available, with multiple mirror implementations for important
data sets. This hierarchical approach can be adapted to expose Big Data in
different ways. We describe how the ease of implementation, and local
customisation of the Aladin Lite embeddable HiPS visualiser have been keys for
promoting collaboration on HiPS.
