Big Data… the buzz word is flying around all over the Internet, but have you ever asked yourself what the heck is big data exactly? Geospatial pros have worked with “big” data products forever it seems, however, all of a sudden data has apparently gotten very big! So, what is Big Data? Esri has tackled this question and has a special resource to provide an answer.
This from Esri… Big Data is popularly defined using the Three “V”s, defined by Gartner1as follows:
- Volume: The increase in data volumes within enterprise systems is caused by transaction volumes and other traditional data types, as well as by new types of data. Too much volume is a storage issue, but too much data is also a massive analysis issue.
- Velocity: This involves streams of data, structured record creation, and availability for access and delivery. Velocity means both how fast data is being produced and how fast the data must be processed to meet demand.
- Variety: IT leaders have always had an issue translating large volumes of transactional information into decisions—now there are more types of information to analyze—mainly coming from social media and mobile (context-aware). Variety includes tabular data (databases), hierarchical data, documents, e-mail, metering data, video, still images, audio, stock ticker data, financial transactions and more.
See more about Big Data from Esri & See also Gartner Says Solving ‘Big Data’ Challenge Involves More Than Just Managing Volumes of Data
