With NODERICKS, let’s talk about ‘Big data’ today.
Big data is one among the most popular IT jargon today. As the name indicates, it means a massive amount of data (which is structured / unstructured). What is the importance of big data in today’s world? Let’s see.
Majorly, big data have got 5 characteristics. They are,
Volume: Indicates quantity. Organizations get data from various sources – business transactions, social media, sensors, machines, etc. – today’s technological advancements have eased the burden in handling them.
Velocity: Indicates the speed of data streaming or transferring. Often, big data have been real time. Technologies like RFID, sensors, smart metering, etc. supports data live streaming.
Variety: Indicates the format in which the data comes. It can be structured (example – numeric data in traditional databases) or unstructured (example – texts, emails, video, audio, stock ticker, financial transactions).
Variability: Indicates periodic fluctuations in the data (example – some information which is popularly trending on social media for a time period). It’s a real challenge to manage seasonal / event triggered data loads (which happens more with unstructured data).
Veracity: Indicates accuracy or clarity of captured data. Only quality data can give accurate results to produce correct insights, on analysis.
Big data can be defined as information assets with the above 5 characteristics, requiring specific technologies as well as analytical methods (like predictive analytics) to get transformed into values which can produce insights for effective decision making as well as implementation. More the data, more precision analyses can be done to get information. This information will give ideas to generate more wisdom.
Bigdata consists of datasets which are complex or large, where conventional data processing will be inefficient. Bigdata comes with lots of challenges in the capture, analysis, data curation, sharing, searching, storage, visualization, transfer, as well as information privacy.
But irrespective of its challenges, big data will be extremely useful for businesses, technology as well as society. In society, it will be helpful in finding out causes of various issues to find a resolution. In businesses, it will give immense benefits (Examples – finding out causes of issues, defects & failures in real-time; implementing activities by the insights from real time data analysis, like issuing point of sales coupons by analyzing customer’s buying habits; rapid risk recalculation; Fraudulent behavior detection before it affects the organization; etc.). In technology, big data can be used to capture, store as well as analyze data, depending upon which R&D for technological advancements can be done. Better decisions will result in operational efficacy, reduced cost as well as reduced risk. Overall, big data come with advantages which can increase the efficiency of any system.