Big data is large volume of loosely structured data that is difficult to process with traditional database techniques and software tools because of its complexity. Big data is use in trend analysis and business intelligence. The more the mass of big data the accurate can the analysis be. Some examples of big data are voluminous data generated and accumulated since years in health care, telecommunication, sales etc.
The definition and usage of big data varies. In simple term, big data is a collection of large volume of data that consists billions to trillions of records accumulated from different sources. In terms of database, big data is can be defined as loosely structured massive volume of data, which is incomplete, and inaccessible unless it is processed using some advanced database-processing method or by using, some sophisticated software tool especially developed to process those sorts of complex data.
Today’s business prefers big data as it depicts wide range of information. However, there are many challenges while handling this complex data. Firstly, to process that large mass of data special database techniques and advanced software tools are required. Secondly, analyzing the processed data is next challenge. Apart from these challenges, once the date is processed there are many advantages of it. The data is useful in machine learning, pattern recognition, statistical analysis, data visualization, trend analysis etc, which are required for today’s business intelligence to develop new business opportunities.
Generally, the trend of big data usage has been in health care, telecommunication and sales sector to predict future health risks, analyze consumer behavior and measure effectiveness of marketing techniques respectively. As the time passes by big data processing and analytics will certainly be unavoidable in each sector.
Big data has also created job opportunities in developing countries like Nepal. For example, VeriskIT (formerly known as D2Hawkeye, which has more than 400 software engineers) a pioneer of big data solution company in Nepal which now offers risk assessment services and decision analytics in various fields. Deerwalk (which has about 300 software engineers) develops custom software for US health care industry to process big data. Leapfrog (which has about 100 software engineers) is developing big data solution software for varied sector like healthcare, banking, and social data. Logpoint develops business software for Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and process big data. ZurelSoft develops big data analytics solution for bioinformatics. Apart from this, there are other big data solution companies and freelancers, some play with big data and some develops sophisticated software to process those data.
As big data is the accumulation of large volume of data, it is even growing exponentially day by day. So are the opportunities in the field of computing. There was a time, when big data was interpreted as over hyped term, but as the time passed, it started to be the part of business analytics and a must have system in each field. On May 2014, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate® Dictionary has added list of new tech words in its dictionary. Since then, big data has also been a formal word because of its large usage.
In fact, either you are thinking to develop career in big data technology or starting to develop architecture today for tomorrow’s big data processing application, you are in the right path. Think big think big data, one always sees even bigger opportunities ahead.