BIG DATA

BIG DATA

1. Variety

   • Refers to the different types and varieties of data
   • Data can be structured, semi-structured or unstructured
   • Data is now stored in many formats, e.g. video and images, not just text

2. Volume

   • Refers to the amount of data stored by organisations.
   • Organisations now store large amounts of data from different sources, requiring large storage capacity hardware.
   • Data storage is now measure in terabytes

3. Velocity

   • Due to large volumes of data, there is a need to use more powerful computers to process the data more quickly
   • Refers to the speed at which data can be processed.

4. Refers to large amounts of data that have the potential to be mined for information. It can be described as the 3V's.

5. Data Analytics is needed to Interpret Big Data

   • Involves analysing large volumes of data to produce useful information.
   • Beneficial to organisations for making decisions and planning for future growth.
   • Specialised software such as data mining and statistical analysis are designed to process vast quantities of data.
   • When data is in different formats it makes preparing and processing the data more challenging for data analytics.