What is Big Data

Very often we hear the term Big Data, a highfalutin term that is almost intimidating, but what is it?

We call Big Data a mass of data whose scale, diversity, and complexity require new architectures, techniques, algorithms, and analytics to manage. Indeed, much more data is being produced nowadays than in the past, and traditional strategies are therefore found to be insufficient.
The main characteristics of Big Data generally come with their 4Vs :

• Volume meant as the amount of data, which is constantly growing.
• Variety of data both in type and in formats and sources. Indeed, information can be drawn from text as well as from images or videos, and even if it is the same type it might be formatted differently.
• Veracity of data understood as the quality of the data, which could be incorrect, corrupt, or incomplete. When working with large amounts of data, it is extremely likely that some portion of the data will have some issues.
• Value possessed by data.

I would like to focus on this last point.
Data has great value, and that is why more and more companies are taking care of it. The data we have, as long as they remain only aggregations of data are like raw gems and their value cannot be appreciated. The figure of the Data Analyst is that of a professional who specializes in extracting value from data by extracting information that can be crucial for making business-level decisions, we are talking in this case about Business Intelligence.

Knowing what big data is and its value helps us understand the direction that most companies have taken and the importance of the professional figures born around the world of data.