WHAT IS BIG DATA?

Big data is a term used to describe a huge collection of data which grows exponentially with time. Such data is so large and complex that traditional data management tools arent able to store and process it efficiently.

Few examples of Big Data 

1. The New York Stock Exchange generates nearly one terabyte of new trade data per day.

2. Facebook gets 500+ terabytes of new data ingested into their database everyday. Those data are mainly generated in terms of images, videos uploads, messages and comments.

3. A jet engine can generate 10+ terabytes  of data during a flight time of just 30 minutes. With thousands of flights per day, the generation of data goes upto many petabytes.

Three types of Big Data

Structured
Data that can be stored, accessed and processed in any form of a fixed format is called a structured data. An employee table with details such as employee id, name, gender, department, salary etc is a form of structured data.

Unstructured
Data with an unknown form or structure is called unstructured data. A typical example of unstructured data is data source containing a combination of text files, images, videos etc. Search results in google are also an example of unstructured data.

Semi-structured
Data that contains both formats are generally called semi-structured data. An example of a semi-structured data would be data such as personal data stored and represented in an XML file.




Reference

Introduction to BIG DATA: What is, Types, Characteristics & Example. [online] Available at: https://www.guru99.com/what-is-big-data.html