In layman’s terms, Big Data is the process of collecting, storing, and analyzing raw data, which is often both structured and unstructured, with various analytics tools. Companies and organizations, both big & medium-sized, can implement big data in their operations to increase their efficiency ten folds and to make better and more informed decisions. Big data is implemented through Hadoop, which is an open-source, java based programming framework.
Features of Big Data, the 3 V’s
Volume: Volume is big data’s specialty. Big data stores data from various sources like social media interactions, transactions, internet-of-things, and sensory data, which are vast amounts of data with incredible volume.
Velocity: Due to the vast amount of data, the data influx has high speed and is very fast, which must be dealt with promptly to reap the maximum benefits. To achieve this, data analysis must be of higher velocity and quick.
Variety: The data that comes in are of wide varieties. They can be structured or unstructured, text, audio, video, email, etc.
Why is it so important?
The importance of big data lies not in the volume of data that is processed but in how the data processing is utilized by companies in their operations and strategic decision-making. The more efficiently big data is tapped, the more potential and benefits it will offer.
- Tools like Hadoop & cloud-based analytics saves cost and offers cost-reduction features to business in ways more than one.
- Hadoop and other analytics tools are swift and effective in processing large chunks of data in a small amount of time, thus offering companies time reduction benefits.
- With big data analytics tools, companies can assess public opinion and sentiments about their offerings by tracking social media trends and mentions. They can adjust strategies accordingly to adapt to changing thoughts and ideas.
These were one of the many benefits big data offers, making big data professionals indispensable parts of an organization.
