Analysing 10 Million Rows in Excel
Proving it does have a place in big data.
Big data is a term used since the early 1990s to describe “huge, overwhelming, and uncontrollable amounts of information”. The rapid rise of the internet has meant the volume of data has increased exponentially over the past two decades.
There is no universal threshold determining where big data starts. However, it’s generally considered to kick in at the point where traditional tools struggle to meet the demands of processing a dataset.
Of course, this is highly subjective. What is colossal to small and medium-sized businesses is minuscule to multinational corporations.
In Excel’s case, the limit is 1,048,576 worksheet rows, although you probably wouldn’t want to get anywhere near that if you wanted a lag-free experience.
Swathes of data scientists, data engineers, and even data analysts, scoff at the idea that Excel can have any role in the big data world. What many don’t realise though is there is something very powerful but lacking an ostentatious presence.
