What is Big Data?

Name: What is Big Data?
Author: Chintan Thakkar

Learn about Big Data and its driving factors.

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Course: On-Demand

(gentle music) What exactly is big data? Big data means large quantities of data that grow exponentially over time. Because of its large size, big data can't be stored in traditional database platforms. So you'll need to explore different ways for storing and processing it. Here's some ways big data is used. Social media. If you count photos, videos and messages, then at least 100 terabytes of data per hour or more are uploaded on social media sites every single day, air aircraft analytics, aircraft manufacturing companies often have contracts with airline companies for aircraft maintenance. The companies have analytics that need to be run on the data generated by the flying aircraft. The size of the data is often 10 terabytes per hour or more. Turbine analytics, turbine manufacturing company have a contract with power plants that are streaming the data that's input into the analytics. The analytics generates output that can display information and alerts totaling to around 80 terabytes per month. All the above cases are perfect examples of big data usage. It's not possible to process or store the data using the traditional relational database model in these examples. So other solutions must be found. The main factors driving the growth of big data include machine learning, artificial intelligence, predictive analytics and real time fraud alerts. There are three types of big data, structured data. This type of data often utilizes a row or column format it's easy to store and search and is highly organized. It can be stored in relational databases such as Postgre SQL or SQL server. It supports several predefined formats and quantitative analysis and is often used in fields such as customer service or employee payroll systems. Unstructured data. It's estimated that up to 90% of data is unstructured. This type of data contains a schema-less model. Doesn't have any predefined model and requires special handling for data storage. It contains several arrays of formats and the source of data can be from mobile devices, email or webpages. This type of data is also more qualitative compared to structured data. And you need to have special data storage for it instead of a relational database. It's not possible to display this data in a row or column format due to the structure of the data. Semi-structured data, this type of data has a structure that is not formatted in tables like structured data. However, it is still organized through a different method typically tags or other indicators. It can also be called self-describing structure and is most commonly used in object-oriented databases. It's particularly important to plan out how to structure a large amount of data. You can convert the information into data to take advantage of the large data sets. An example of an online retailer taking advantage of large data sets might be when the retailer collects data from a user's buying pattern, then starts showing the advertisements such as, a companion item commonly bought alongside an item the customer already purchased, price reduction alerts for items, the customer frequently purchased or displaying advertisements on websites their customer base visits often. All this information is generated from the analytics the online retailer uses, the analytics run using big data. Then new data is generated to increase the company's sales. Using big data requires us to think about how to store big data, how to scale the storage and make it highly available. How to increase the data processing power, how to understand the different types of available data, how to differentiate between machine generated and human generated data and how to process large data sets from different data sources or real time streaming data sources.

Beginner Provider : Chintan Thakkar 4 Lessons · 15m in Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Urdu, Chinese

Course Description

Big data is a term that describes large, often hard-to-manage volumes of data. This data may be both structured and unstructured. Because of its size, big data can’t be stored in traditional business platforms. This What is Big Data? course will introduce Big Data and how it is used. You will also learn about the factors driving the growth of Big Data, the types of Big Data, and data sources. These lessons will also introduce how Big Data is stored.

If you don’t process the data your business collects in real-time, it can lead to missing an opportunity. Big Data and the concepts presented in this curse are used in healthcare, banking, retail, defense, and almost all enterprises of any size. Utilizing Big Data effectively comes with its own sets of challenges. However, the benefits of Big Data can far outweigh the challenges, so it’s worth assessing your organization’s needs and finding a way to use Big Data to your benefit.

What You'll Learn

Define Big Data and explain what the term describes
Describe the factors driving the growth of Big Data
Compare and contrast the different types of Big Data
Identify the sources of data for Big Data
Explain the benefits and challenges of Big Data
Recognize how Big Data is stored and used across enterprises

Key Takeaways

Big Data describes large, often hard-to-manage volumes of data that may be both structured and unstructured.
Because of its size, Big Data cannot be stored in traditional business platforms.
Failing to process collected data in real-time can lead to missing an opportunity.
Big Data and the concepts in this course are used in healthcare, banking, retail, defense, and almost all enterprises of any size.
The benefits of Big Data can far outweigh its challenges, making it worth assessing an organization's needs and finding a way to use it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is this course about?

This course introduces Big Data and how it is used, covering the factors driving its growth, the types of Big Data, data sources, and how Big Data is stored.

Who can benefit from understanding Big Data?

Big Data and the concepts presented in this course are used in healthcare, banking, retail, defense, and almost all enterprises of any size.

What topics do the lessons cover?

The lessons cover Introduction to Big Data, Data Sources for Big Data, Big Data Characteristics, and Big Data Benefits and Challenges.

What skills will I gain from this course?

The course relates to skills including Big Data, Big Data Analytics, BigQuery, Data Classification, Data Science, and Oracle Big Data.

Why is it important to use Big Data effectively?

If you don't process the data your business collects in real-time, it can lead to missing an opportunity, and while utilizing Big Data comes with challenges, its benefits can far outweigh them.

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