What is Big Data

Big data is a combination of structured, semistructured and unstructured data collected by organizations that can be mined for information and used in machine learning projects, predictive modeling and other advanced analytics applications.

Systems that process and store big data have become a common component of data management architectures in organizations, combined with tools that support big data analytics uses.

Although big data doesn't equate to any specific volume of data, big data deployments often involve terabytes, petabytes and even exabytes of data created and collected over time. Companies use big data in their systems to improve operations, provide better customer service, create personalized marketing campaigns and take other actions that, ultimately, can increase revenue and profits. Businesses that use it effectively hold a potential competitive advantage over those that don't because they're able to make faster and more informed business decisions.

For example, big data provides valuable insights into customers that companies can use to refine their marketing, advertising and promotions in order to increase customer engagement and conversion rates. Both historical and real-time data can be analyzed to assess the evolving preferences of consumers or corporate buyers, enabling businesses to become more responsive to customer wants and needs.

Big data is also used by medical researchers to identify disease signs and risk factors and by doctors to help diagnose illnesses and medical conditions in patients. In addition, a combination of data from electronic health records, social media sites, the web and other sources gives healthcare organizations and government agencies up-to-date information on infectious disease threats or outbreaks.

Big data comes from myriad sources -- some examples are transaction processing systems, customer databases, documents, emails, medical records, internet clickstream logs, mobile apps and social networks. It also includes machine-generated data, such as network and server log files and data from sensors on manufacturing machines, industrial equipment and internet of things devices.

In addition to data from internal systems, big data environments often incorporate external data on consumers, financial markets, weather and traffic conditions, geographic information, scientific research and more. Images, videos and audio files are forms of big data, too.

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