WHAT IS BIG DATA

WHAT IS BIG DATA

In this age of digital information technology, Big Data has become a pervasive catchword in both the academic and the IT industry yet its meaning is still cloaked by much conceptual ambiguity. Today, the concept of Big Data entails manifold and diverse nuances of connotation, all of which represent a large collection of data. There is however a lot of misunderstanding that comes to mind when using the term “Big Data”. Some people see “Big Data” as data that is either in gigabytes, terabytes, petabytes or anything that is larger than this size. This does not completely refer to the term as even a small amount of data can be referred to as “Big Data” depending on the context with which it is been used.

Generally, Big Data is a field of Information Technology that concerns itself with systematically capturing, processing, analyzing and extracting information or dealing with data sets that are too complex to handle using conventional data processing application software. In other words, Big Data represents large sets of multifaceted data, both unstructured, semi-structured and structured, which cannot be handled with the use of traditional processing/computing tools and/or algorithms within a satisfactory time period.

According to De Mauro, Greco & Grimaldi (2015, p.103), Big Data “represents the information assets characterized by such a high volume, velocity, and variety to require specific technology and analytical methods for its transformation into value”. Alexandru et al (2016) see Big Data as a new generation of technology that possesses the ability to harness the worth of enormously large volumes of very diverse data via real-time processing and examination. Today, the term Big Data is also used to refer to the use of user behavior analytics, predictive analytics or other advanced data analytics system that extract value from data. Initially, Big Data was linked with three vital concepts: volume, variety, and velocity, known commonly as the 3Vs of Big Data. Today, scholars have added others Vs such as value, variability, and veracity to key concepts of Big Data.

References

Alexandru. A., Alexandru, C.A., Coardos, D., & Tudora, E. (2016). Big Data: Concepts, technologies, and applications in the public sector. International Journal of Computer, Electrical, Automation, Control, and Information Engineering, 10(10), 1732-1738.

De Mauro, A., Greco, M., & Grimaldi, M. (2015). What is big data? A consensual definition and a review of key research topics. AIP Conference Proceedings, 1644, pp.97-104.