Big Data will change our world
completely and is not a passing fad that will go away. To understand big data
concept it is important to understand five Vs: Volume, Velocity, Variety,
Veracity and Value.
1-Volume refers to the vast amounts of data
generated every second. Just think of all the emails, twitter messages, photos,
video clips, sensor data etc. we produce and share every second. We are not
talking Terabytes but Zettabytes or Brontobytes. On Facebook alone we send 10
billion messages per day, click the "like' button 4.5 billion times and
upload 350 million new pictures each and every day. If we take all the data
generated in the world between the beginning of time and 2008, the same amount
of data will soon be generated every minute! This increasingly makes data sets
too large to store and analyze using traditional database technology. With big
data technology we can now store and use these data sets with the help of
distributed systems, where parts of the data is stored in different locations
and brought together by software.
2-Velocity refers to the speed at which new data is
generated and the speed at which data moves around. Just think of social media
messages going viral in seconds, the speed at which credit card transactions
are checked for fraudulent activities, or the milliseconds it takes trading
systems to analyze social media networks to pick up signals that trigger
decisions to buy or sell shares. Big data technology allows us now to analyze
the data while it is being generated, without ever putting it into databases.
3-Variety refers to the different types of
data we can now use. In the past we focused on structured data that neatly fits
into tables or relational databases, such as financial data (e.g. sales by
product or region). In fact, 80% of the world’s data is now unstructured, and
therefore can’t easily be put into tables (think of photos, video sequences or
social media updates). With big data technology we can now harness differed
types of data (structured and unstructured) including messages, social media
conversations, photos, sensor data, video or voice recordings and bring them
together with more traditional, structured data.
4-Veracity refers to the messiness or
trustworthiness of the data. With many forms of big data, quality and accuracy
are less controllable (just think of Twitter posts with hash tags,
abbreviations, typos and colloquial speech as well as the reliability and
accuracy of content) but big data and analytics technology now allows us to
work with these type of data. The volumes often make up for the lack of quality
or accuracy.
5-Value:It is all well and good having access to big data but
unless we can turn it into value it is useless. So you can safely argue that
'value' is the most important V of Big Data. It is important that businesses
make a business case for any attempt to collect and leverage big data. It is so
easy to fall into the buzz trap and embark on big data initiatives without a
clear understanding of costs and benefits.
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