If it’s Friday, it’s time for another pill in our #IP Dictionary series. This time we’re going to discuss another buzzword that you’ve probably heard of before — Big Data.

So, what is Big Data? Big Data is a term that describes the large volume of data — both structured and unstructured.

The term has been around for some time now. In truth, the concept refers to data sets whose size or type is beyond the ability of traditional relational databases to capture, manage, and process with low-latency.

Many times, Big Data is in the form of unstructured data — millions of hours of video content, billions of pages of text, billions of pinpoint GPS locations (coordinates), or billions of images — and it has one or more of the following characteristics: high volume, high velocity, or high variety.

Big Data can come from Artificial Intelligence (AI), mobile, social networks, or Internet of Things (IoT), which are driving data complexity, new forms and sources of data. Big Data enables Big Data Analytics that extract insights from vast volumes of data to make better decisions & strategic business moves, or train Artificial Intelligence Algorithms via Machine Learning. However, Big Data needs to be processed in order to be valuable!

Phew! I think that was quite a lot to process. Although Big Data is not necessarily a hard subject to get your head around, the truth is we are generating more data than ever before, and it’s quite a challenge to keep track of everything, let alone sort through all those mountains of data and make informed decisions.

But I hope I made it easy enough for you to understand.

If you haven’t checked them out already, the previous pills in our series are: Internet Governance, Internet Protocol, IP Utility, IPv4 Address Exhaustion, IPv6 Address, and Internet of Things.

If you want to chat with us, you can find us on Telegram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Kuende. And if you have any other terms you’d like us to explain, just leave us a comment below and we’ll have them explained for you!

Cheers!