Why Big Data Matters
Buzz words may be annoying but big data is more than the latest craze word in the IT industry – it’s essential.
Why is this? Well according to IBM we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day. That’s a lot of zeros. Also, 90 per cent of the data in the world was created in the last two years.
Think about it, data is being created everywhere we look: social media, videos, images, phone data, Angry Birds high scores! It’s all data and it’s only going to get bigger.
We’ve created IT systems to generate all this data, now we need to use some of those systems to make sense of it all and get the most out of it.
In healthcare fast analysis could mean that diseases and patterns are spotted faster leading to better treatments. It could also mean that resources for power generation are allocated better to improve efficiency. The big thing with big data is the outcome and the results that fast, efficient analysis can bring.
In fact there isn’t an industry that couldn’t make use of better data analysis of all the data it holds, the challenge is being able to do quickly so that the data is fresh and relevant. So whether you are in cyber security or simply want to get more of an idea of what your customers are doing on your website big data could well be the way forward.
In many ways big data isn’t about the size, but what you do with it so that you can get more from your company. As we generate more and more data we need to start to make sense of it all and make it work for us.
