MIS2502
“Big data” is a term used to describe extremely large sets of data that can be analyzed through computer programs that help a company with making business decisions. A data warehouse is very similar to this. It’s a repository for data. Big data has three main components to it: volume, variety, and velocity. Volume is the amount of data, the variety refers to the different kinds of data, and velocity is how fast the data is processed. Big data is important because it is used throughout many business processes, especially ones with a lot of data. It also can handle amounts of data that no human could possible deal with, or at least want to deal with. This topic relates to our 2502 course, mainly through the use of ETL and pivot tables. A pivot table can extract specific information from an extremely large database, and transform it into useful information. In class we used pivot tables to evaluate Excel sheets that had tens of thousands of rows of data, and we were able to easily pull information out to answer questions. There are many uses of big data in the world, like airlines, retail stores, bookstores, and many more that have large amounts of data to them. In a bookstore, you can easily track what books people buy and sell pretty easily, since you just scan the barcode at checkout. But once buying and selling books online became popular, they were able to record a lot more data than a bookstore could. On sites like “Amazon” it not only tracks what you buy, but it tracks what other books you look at, and it also recommends what book to buy along with the ones in your cart. It knows how to do this, by collecting extremely big amounts of data.
McAfee, Andrew, and Erik Brynjolfsson. “Big Data.” David Court Big (2012): n. pag.Www.robset.com. Web.