Taking a Peek into the Future of Big Data

Data is being constantly created. The rate at which data is growing is incredible. About 2.5 quintillion bytes of data is being created every single day and 90% of data in the world today has been created in just the last two years alone! This gave birth to Big Data. Let us learn more about it.

What is Big Data?

Big Data can be defined as the data that is so big that it cannot be analyzed or mined for information using the traditional data processing application tools, traditional database and software technologies owing to its big size. It can even pose an issue when the data moves too fast or exceeds the current processing capacity. The data can be structured, unstructured or semi-structured. The volume of data doesn’t hold as much importance as compared to what you do with that data.

Businesses must understand how valuable big data can be when it is utilized well. By analyzing the data and gaining insights from it, you can improve the business operations significantly, optimize customer engagement, capitalize new sources of revenue and make informed decisions. You can even use the insights to prevent fraud and threats to your businesses and customers. Since big data is high-volume, high-velocity and high-variety information asset, innovative and cost-effective methods must be employed to process information to offer better insight and help in the decision-making process.

Future of Big Data

It won’t be incorrect to say that big data has greatly impacted the business world. But what does its future hold? Will big data grow or fade in the near future? Let us take a look into it.

• The Volume of Data will Grow: There is no stopping to data being created. We will generate larger and larger volumes of data, considering mobile and internet connected devices are expected to grow exponentially in the coming years.

• Data Analysis will Improve: Since analytics play an extremely crucial role in understanding and ‘decoding’ big data, there will be a growth in the number of tools for analyzing big data. This will significantly improve the way big data is analyzed.

• Machine Learning will Increase: Organizations will put emphasis on machine learning to assist in data preparation and predictive analysis. There will be an increase in the number of businesses opting for machine learning.

• Data-as-a-Service will become Popular: This model is already grabbing the attention of numerous businesses. It won’t be a surprise to see more and more businesses attempting to monetize their data in the future.

• Algorithm Markets will Surface: Businesses are looking for various methods to make analyzing data easier. Eventually, businesses would prefer to purchase algorithms rather than programming them and adding their own data. Algorithm markets will cater to this need.

• Business Analytics Software will Contain Prescriptive Analytics: More than half of the business analytics software will include the necessary intelligence by the year of 2020.

• Privacy will Still be a Challenge: Security is a concern and it will still pose to be a challenge in the near future. Privacy controls and procedures will be revised and created to address it.

Big data still has its own set of challenges but with time they will be addressed to successfully. It will get much bigger than what it is today and companies must embrace it, if they haven’t already. Those who ignore it or are impervious to what they can gain from big data, they will find themselves far behind everyone else. Plan for the growth of data and let data offer you the competitive edge.

Contributed by: Kevin Patel who is a Service Assurance Technology Analyst at Xangati. A self-proclaimed tech geek, with a passion for the ever-changing world of virtualized and hybrid-cloud environments. Kevin has a passion for dissecting tech topics such as virtualization, data center migration, storage, networking and cloud. On his days off, he can be found watching sci-fi movies, rock climbing or volunteering.

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