Big Data for Beginners

What is big data?

Every day, unaccountable bytes of data is created — so much that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone. This data comes from everywhere: sensors used to gather climate information, posts to social media sites, digital pictures and videos, purchase transaction records, and cell phone GPS signals to name a few.

Big data is massive volumes of both structured and unstructured data that is so large that it's difficult to process using traditional database and software techniques. In most enterprise scenarios the data is too big or it moves too fast or it exceeds current processing capacity.

Big data spans three dimensions: Volume, Velocity and Variety.

Volume: Enterprises are awash with ever-growing data of all types, easily amassing terabytes—even petabytes—of information.

1) Turn 12 terabytes of Tweets created each day into improved product sentiment analysis

2) Convert 350 billion annual meter readings to better predict power consumption

Velocity: Sometimes 2 minutes is too late. For time-sensitive processes such as catching fraud, big data must be used as it streams into your enterprise in order to maximize its value.

1) Scrutinize 5 million trade events created each day to identify potential fraud

2) Analyze 500 million daily call detail records in real-time to predict customer churn faster

Variety: Big data is any type of data - structured and unstructured data such as text, sensor data, audio, video, click streams, log files and more. New insights are found when analyzing these data types together.

1) Monitor 100’s of live video feeds from surveillance cameras to target points of interest

2) Exploit the 80% data growth in images, video and documents to improve customer satisfaction

Analyst Gartner’s definition of big data was not longer than a tweet.

“Big data” is high-volume, -velocity and -variety information assets that demand cost-effective, innovative forms of information processing for enhanced insight and decision making.”

In the past, businesses paid a fee again and again, often for the same software. Over time the price of the software would go up, and the whole business would be subject to the whims of the vendor. But people have grown wary of falling into that trap, In the future, all new platforms for data will need be built on open-source software that facilitates the storage and managing of data in a single system and have embraced open-source solutions. Big Data is the next big thing to deal with Data and all the intricate things that come with it. 

Did this intrigue you? Need some Big Data Tutorials? Here are a few links that can help you:

1. Edureka 
2. Big Data University 
3. Cloudera