What is Big Data and what's it for?

For some time now, technology and multiple connections are an integral part of society. Together, they generate large amounts of information that has to be managed. Thus, technological development and new tools have created Big Data. By that, we mean the set of data and information that we process to understand behaviours and to improve decision-making and the actions we should take.

This technology is particularly applicable to businesses, since it is very useful for managing all the information.

What we used to do by storing large amounts of data in documents, we now have a system to do it, one that can gather all the data according to each need. We currently say we're living in the data society as all this information is becoming increasingly important.

Without information, in today's connected society we would be nothing. Every business now works with a huge volume of information that needs to be managed. For example, let's consider a web page. For each person who visits this site, this technology is able to collect all the information on that person in order to offer him what is best tailored to suit him or her. Because of this tool, when we search the net for shoes, and then we move on to other pages that have nothing to do with shoes, we're shown advertisements for shoes. This is thanks to Big Data.

According to the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, "Big Data is the massive analysis of data and the new technologies that make it possible to store and process them, as well as the use made of the information obtained through those technologies."

So what's all this information and data good for? As we mentioned earlier, nearly every single large corporation stores and handles greater and greater volumes of information on every level of its organisational structure. This is true both in-house and externally. To help manage it efficiently, such companies use Big Data to channel all that information.

And this information may be generated by the users themselves, the customers, the data, the websites, and even the machines a company works with. This is what has made it so important to handle, as it unifies all the company's data.

What is Big Data for?

The answer to this question is simple. Big Data is good for everything. It can be applied to multiple tools or actions, businesses or institutions. It is a great step forward and is therefore widely usable.

To get a more detailed understanding, note that Big Data has 7 key points that represent what it is and what it's for.

They are as follows:

Volume

This corresponds to the huge amount of data that gets created and must be sorted and stored in order to be put to a specific use. The more the data, the harder the applications that sort it have to work.

Speed

The data are created in real time, as they are being processed and stored. In other words, the immediacy of the information is a reality thanks to this handling of the information.

Variety

As we noted earlier, these data can have a variety of variables, formats and forms. Numerical data, text, images, videos, or any other information.

Accuracy

Because of the variety, data must also be real and reliable. Otherwise, their management and the subsequent solutions these data offer would not be accurate or able to handle all the information received.

Feasibility

Another key for success is to apply the data at the right time so that they fulfil their functions. This is due to the large volumes of data that must be effective at all times.

Displaying

Another key to Big Data is how to display data in a way that makes it recognisable and easy to understand. Thus, it is essential for the data to be clearly synthesized.

Value

None of this would be of any use if management of the data weren't valuable. All this information must turn into future decisions or key factors. The idea of Big Data is to help ensure that the actions chosen are the most suitable ones.