Big Data filling the gaps in Blockchain, and vice versa
Talking about blockchain one shouldn’t mean only cryptocurrency
Blockchain is the modern technology and people start to wonder about it along with the cryptocurrencies. Nowaday blockchain is widely discussed not only in Financial applications. Blockchain is already being used to store and process personal data in marketing, computer games and other domains. But what is the blockchain?
Blockchain is a continuous chain of blocks that contain all the transactions. Its main feature is that you cannot modify or delete these records, you can only add new ones. That distinguishes the ordinary DB from the blockchain.
Blockchain is also named the technology of distributed registers because the entire chain of transactions and the actual list of current owners are stored on community computers independently. Thus, even if one or more computers fail, the information will not be lost.
[in simple terms] If turtles amount becomes less in an area (they were eaten by birds of prey or foxes), the previous amount info has been stored in the registry book. It can not be edited or deleted but a new record appears only that the turtle's amount is become smaller and where they had gone. Cryptocurrencies are just another area where this technology is used as a tool.
Not another fancy word: Big Data
To understand what does it mean, let’s imagine a supermarket where all the goods are not in the usual order: bread next to fruit, tomato paste near-frozen pizza, and so on. Big data puts everything in its place and helps you find nut milk, find out its cost and expiration date, and lets to know was there anyone there besides you, who buys such milk and how it is better than cow’s milk.
Huge data are processed so a person can get particular results and apply it further effectively. Here is a list of Data Analysis methods which are applied in Big data by McKinsey:
- Data Mining,
- Machine Learning,
- Artificial neural network,
- Artificial intelligence-assisted identification / Pattern recognition,
- Predictive Analysis,
- Simulation modeling,
- Statistical Analysis,
- Data Visualization, etc..
The main toolkits in Big Data are NoSQL, MapReduce, Hadoop, R and others.
In other words, Big data is a field with plenty of tools, approaches and methods for processing both structured and unstructured data in order to use them for specific tasks.
Why does a fish need a bicycle?
Blockchain and Big Data is great combination which opens up new possibilities for business, including the ability :
- to get detailed information about consumer preferences, basing on which you can build detailed analytical profiles for specific suppliers, products and product components;
- to integrate detailed transactions info and consumption statistics of certain groups of goods by different user groups;
- to obtain detailed analytical data on supply and consumption chains, to control the loss of products during transportation;
- to counteract falsification of products, to increase the effectiveness of the fight against money laundering and fraud, etc.
Blockchain technology can reduce transaction processing time from several days up to several minutes (it is important especially for the banking sector), it can be used also to transmit critical data on the patients health. Such info should be as secure as possible, be verifiable and immutable. These requirements are perfectly met by blockchain technology.
Thus, information security is one of the main issues of Big Data, and Blockchain can solve it. Ensuring compliance with all its basic principles, distributed registry technology can guarantee the data integrity and reliability. The blockchain technology stabilize information systems due to the lack of a single point of failure. Distributed registry technology can help to solve the problem of data credibility and provide the opportunity of data exchange using universal format.
