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What is Big Data ?

What is Big Data ?
It is now time to answer an important question – What is Big Data?

Big data, as defined by Wikipedia, is this:
“Big data is a broad term for data sets so large or complex that traditional data processing applications are inadequate. Challenges include analysis, capture, data curation, search, sharingstorage,transfervisualizationquerying and information privacy. The term often refers simply to the use of predictive analytics or certain other advanced methods to extract value from data, and seldom to a particular size of data set.”
In simple terms, Big Data is data that has the 3 characteristics that we mentioned in the last section –
• It is big – typically in terabytes or even petabytes
• It is varied – it could be a traditional database, it could be video data, log data, text data or even voice data
• It keeps increasing as new data keeps flowing in
This kind of data is becoming common place in many fields including Science, public administration and business.
The ability to harness such data for better decision making is therefore in great demand in today’s world.

Where is Big Data Used ?
Big Data is most prevalent in consumer-centric industries that typically generate large volumes of data. Examples of
such industries are –
• Consumer products such as Proctor & Gamble
• Credit card and Insurance such as Capital One and Progressive Insurance
• E-commerce companies such as Amazon, Netflix and Flipkart
• Travel and leisure such as United Airlines and Caesars Casino
• Public utilities such as electricity companies
Big Data is also becoming increasingly important in industries such as –
• Telecom
• Media and Entertainment
• Education
• And healthcare
Within each of these industries, Big Data can be applied to various functions such as –
• Marketing – for example social media analysis to understand customer pulse
• Supply chain – for example better inventory management through GPS data analysis
• Finance – for example for fraud control
• Manufacturing – for example, to link manufacturing operations with the supply chain for better optimization
In this section, you have seen industries and functions where Big Data is making a significant impact.
Now let us get an overview of some of the technologies that are driving the Big Data revolution.

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