Big Data

Word “DATA” has been around for quite long now. From a piece of hard copy document to the complex clustered database everything is data. There are several types of data but mainly we can classified them in structured and unstructured. Basically any data is said to be structured if it allows you to sort / search and represent its content in a relational form. Besides databases everything else can be considered as unstructured data. 

Nowadays Data is the core element of any business. Our data is getting bigger and bigger day by day and we should be courteous enough to call it Big. So what makes the data Big? I mean what is the threshold?

We do not have an easy definition for this question but it is agreed that ‘any data which cannot be managed by traditional tools is said to be Big Data.’ Main attributes of Big DATA are Size, Speed, diversity and complexity. Here size refers to volume of data. It may be structured or in unstructured form. Speed at which the data grow, if the speed is fast then the data is big. Variety and complexity means the mix nature of data in both form structured and unstructured. Managing such data required tools when help manipulating this data and obtain value from it. Yes the term ‘data science’ deals with this situation "actually obtaining value from such big data by using some special tools" is what we call data analytics. 

A data scientist is that person who does this analytics. As for now many technologists have believed that data scientists will be the superman of the IT industry and rule the job market for next decade. DBAs and Data analysts may have an advantage in this domain but early starter will always be benefited in the long run.