Big data

Abstract

Beginning of the twenty-first century has brought in a revolution towards the usage of data. Society has understood the relevance of data for problem-solving. It was realized that the data could speak for itself provided a great deal of information is effectively managed and pattern analysis is undertaken. For this purpose, voluminous quantity of data collected from various sources and in different formats was found useful. This big data is nothing but a large volume of data—both structured and unstructured. Normally, such data was always available; however, its relevance was less understood because it was not possible to collate and analyse such humongous data. The presence of information technology (IT)-based tools has brought in much of a change towards collection, processing and analysis of data. It has been realized that an appropriate ability to extract high value from voluminous data sets has been realized. Particularly, over last couple of years, the usage of big data is found impacting various decision-making processes.