Data is everywhere; data in itself is not a new invention. Do you remember when the last time you used a CD or a floppy disk to store data was? Well, I believe that was in the 21st century. Nowadays, the use of manual records, files, and CDs have vanished. The only reason for this change is the exponential growth of data with the introduction to the internet. Whatever we do, whenever we go online, use GPS, use social media platforms, and also when we shop, we generate data. In simple terms, we leave digital footprints with every digital action we take.
According to the Forbes report, there are 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created each day, but the pace is accelerating with the growth of the internet. Over the last two years, 90 percent of the data in the world was generated.
So, What Is Data?
Data is a collection of characters, symbols, quantities on which computers perform operations. If data is not put into the right context, it doesn't do anything to a human or computer.
Now read on and get introduced to the world of Big Data and further think about taking up a Data engineering course.
What is Big Data?
According to Gartner's definition – “Big Data is that data which contains greater variety arriving in increasing volumes and even higher velocity.” This is known as 3 Vs.
In general, Big Data is data but in a huge size. It is a term used to describe a collection of data that is huge in volume and yet growing exponentially. Big Data is a combination of structured data, unstructured data, and semi-structured data collected by organizations at different levels that can be mined for information and can be further used.
The Three Different Types Of Big Data Are:
- Structured Data: Any data that can be stored, accessed and processed in the fixed format is structured data
- Unstructured Data: Any data in an anonymous form or the structure is termed as unstructured data. Despite being huge, unstructured data poses several challenges in terms of processing for deriving value out of it.
- Semi-structured Data: It can contain both unstructured and structured forms of data.
3 Vs of Big Data
- Volume: It is one of the most key characteristics that need to be considered while identifying the data as the size of the data plays a crucial role in determining the value out of data.
- Variety: It refers to the numerous types of data that are available, both structured and unstructured. Earlier, spreadsheets and databases were the only sources of data, but nowadays, data is in the form of audio, images, videos, emails, PDFs, etc. considered in the data analysis.
- Velocity: It refers to the fast rate at which the data is received and acted on. Basically, how fast the data is generated and processed to meet the demands and determines the real potential in the data.
Applications of Big Data
As the Big Data concept came in demand, there are certain domains where Big Data applications have been revolutionized:
Insurance: Uses Big Data to provide customer insights, predict illness, accidents, and pricing of their products.
Entertainment: Amazon and Netflix, both are using Big Data to make movies and show recommendations to their users.
Education: Big Data has enhanced the learning of students as well as aided the teachers to track their results and performance regularly.
Government: A very productive use of Big Data in the field of politics to analyze patterns and influence the election results.
Automobile: The world’s prestigious brand Rolls Royce has used Big Data by fitting more than 100 sensors into its engines and propulsion systems that record every detail about their operations. The changes identified in the data in real-time are reported to engineers who further decide the best course of action to solve the problem.
Future of Big Data
As the data is rapidly increasing day by day, the future of Big Data looks bright as there are numerous job opportunities in the field of Big Data that includes Big Data Engineer, Big Data Analyst, Big Data Architect.
According to Statista, the market revenue of Big Data is forecasted to grow by $103 billion from $7.6 billion by 2027, which is more than double the market size in 2018.
There are more than 30000 jobs available in the US market with several designations, including Big Data Analyst, Big Data Engineer, Big Data Architect, Big Data Developer. According to Glassdoor, the average salary of a Big Data professional is $103K that varies from respective designations. The salary may increase depending upon the expertise and experience you bring to the table.
So now you must be thinking about how to get into this exciting domain, well you can opt for the Big Data engineering course to learn the skills required for a successful career in data engineering and to master the Big Data framework and use the database management tool to store data.
Conclusion
Big Data is a term used to describe a collection of data that is relatively huge and growing exponentially that could be structured, unstructured, and semi-structured. It has three significant characteristics, i.e., volume, variety, velocity. Also, you can go for a Big Data course as the future of Big Data appears to be bright with numerous job opportunities across the globe with a handsome salary package.
