The Importance Of Big Data

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The use of technology has played an integral role in enhancing the development of the business world. The invention of cars allowed employees to live further from work and made commuting possible, telephones propelled the economy by making instant intercontinental communication feasible, and e-commerce was realized through the invention of the internet. Although technology has alleviated many barriers in business and allowed for more effective and efficient means of sending and receiving data, it comes with its own set of disadvantages as well. In recent years, big data has gain a lot of attention in academia, industry, and even government agencies around the world. Unfortunately, our currently diminutive capabilities of comprehending this …show more content…

What we consider large data today will change with innovation and technological progress. However, a generally accepted definition is a collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process using traditional data processing applications (Wah, Cheng, & Wang, 2015). The amount of available digital data has increased exponentially from 25% in 2000 to over 98% as of 2015. It is expected to double bi-yearly with current capacity at 130 exabytes and projected to be approximately 40,000 exabytes by 2020. For a quick understanding of exactly how large that figure is, one exabyte is equivalent to 1 billion gigabytes of data. Due to its size, it provides companies an untapped resource with vast potential. Big data can be regarded as the new petroleum that will power the future information economy (Wah et al., 2015).
There are four distinct categorizations for big data: structured, unstructured, semi-structured and mixed. Structured data is data that can be analyzed within existing data models, and material information is extractable. Unfortunately, structured data only accounts for approximately five percent of all big data. The majority is unstructured data that cannot be analyzed using traditional data processing methods and include text, audio, video, and images. Semi-structured refers to data that is analyzable but lacks a formal data model structure. And finally, mixed is a combination of the previous three data

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