UNIT-1 Introduction of Big Data

Types of digital data

DIGITAL DATA
Digital data is information stored on a computer system as a series of 0’s and 1’s in a binary
language. Digital data jumps from one value to the next in a step by step sequence.
Example: Whenever we send an email, read a social media post, or take pictures with our digital
camera, we are working with digital data.

Digital data can be classified into three forms:

a. Unstructured Data: The data which does not conform to a data model or is not
in a form that can be used easily by a computer program is categorized as unstructured data.
About 80—90% data of an organization is in this format.
Example: Memos, chat rooms, PowerPoint presentations, images, videos, letters,
researches, white papers, the body of an email, etc.
b. Semi-Structured Data: The data which does not conform to a data model but has some
structure is categorized as semi-structured data. However, it is not in a form that can be used
easily by a computer program.
Example : Emails, XML, markup languages like HTML, etc. Metadata for this
data is available but is not sufficient.
c. Structured Data: The data which is in an organized form (ie. in rows and columns) and
can be easily used by a computer program is categorized as semi-structured data. Relationships
exist between entities of data, such as
classes and their objects.
Example: Data stored in databases.

What is Big Data?

According to Gartner, the definition of Big Data –

“Big data” is high-volume, velocity, and variety information assets that demand cost-effective,
innovative forms of information processing for enhanced insight and decision making.”
This definition clearly answers the ―What is Big Data?‖ question – Big Data refers to complex
and large data sets that have to be processed and analyzed to uncover valuable information that
can benefit businesses and organizations.
However, there are certain basic tenets of Big Data that will make it even simpler to answer what
is Big Data:
It refers to a massive amount of data that keeps on growing exponentially with time.
It is so voluminous that it cannot be processed or analyzed using conventional data processing
techniques.
It includes data mining, data storage, data analysis, data sharing, and data visualization.
 The term is an all-comprehensive one including data, data frameworks, along with the tools
and techniques used to process and analyze the data.

The History of Big Data

Although the concept of big data itself is relatively new, the origins of large data sets go back to
the 1960s and '70s when the world of data was just getting started with the first data centers and
the development of the relational database.
Around 2005, people began to realize just how much data users generated through Facebook,
YouTube, and other online services. Hadoop (an open-source framework created specifically to
store and analyze big data sets) was developed that same year. NoSQL also began to gain
popularity during this time.
The development of open-source frameworks, such as Hadoop (and more recently, Spark) was
essential for the growth of big data because they make big data easier to work with and cheaper
to store. In the years since then, the volume of big data has skyrocketed. Users are still
generating huge amounts of data—but it‘s not just humans who are doing it.
With the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT), more objects and devices are connected to the
Internet, gathering data on customer usage patterns and product performance. The emergence of
machine learning has produced still more data.
While big data has come far, its usefulness is only just beginning. Cloud computing has
expanded big data possibilities even further. The cloud offers truly elastic scalability, where
developers can simply spin up ad hoc clusters to test a subset of data.
The 21 st century is characterized by the rapid advancement in the field of information
technology. IT has become an integral part of daily life as well as various other industries like:
health, education, entertainment, science and technology, genetics, or business operations and
these industries generate a lot of data, this can be called Big Data.
Big Data consists of large datasets that cannot be managed efficiently by the common database
management systems.
These datasets range from terabytes to exabytes.
Mobile phones, credit cards, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) devices, and social
networking platforms create huge amounts of data that may reside unutilized at unknown servers
for many years.
And with the evolution of Big Data, this data can be accessed and analyzed on a regular basis to
generate useful information.
“Big Data” is a relative term depending on who is discussing it. For Example, Big Data to
Amazon or Google is very different from Big Data to a medium-sized insurance organization.
Introduction to Big Data platform

A big data platform is a type of IT solution that combines the features and capabilities of
several big data applications and utilities within a single solution; this is then used further
for managing as well as analyzing Big Data.
It focuses on providing its users with efficient analytics tools for massive datasets.
The users of such platforms can custom build applications according to their use case like
to calculate customer loyalty (E-Commerce user case), and so on.
Goal: The main goal of a Big Data Platform is to achieve: Scalability, Availability, Performance,
and Security.
Example: Some of the most commonly used Big Data Platforms are :
● Hadoop Delta Lake Migration Platform
● Data Catalog Platform
● Data Ingestion Platform
● IoT Analytics Platform

Drivers for Big Data

Big Data has quickly risen to become one of the most desired topics in the industry.
The main business drivers for such rising demand for Big Data Analytics are :
1. The digitization of society
2. The drop in technology costs
3. Connectivity through cloud computing
4. Increased knowledge about data science
5. Social media applications
6. The rise of Internet-of-Things(IoT)
Example: A number of companies that have Big Data at the core of their strategy like : Apple,
Amazon, Facebook and Netflix have become very successful at the beginning of the 21st
century.

Big Data Architecture:

Big data architecture is designed to handle the ingestion, processing, and analysis of data that is
too large or complex for traditional database systems.

The big data architectures include the following components:

Data sources: All big data solutions start with one or more data sources.
Example,
o Application data stores, such as relational databases.
o Static files produced by applications, such as web server log files.
o Real-time data sources, such as IoT devices.

Data storage: Data for batch processing operations is stored in a distributed file
store that can hold high volumes of large files in various formats (also called data lake).
Example, Azure Data Lake Store or blob containers in Azure Storage.

Batch processing: Since the data sets are so large, therefore a big data solution must process
data files using long-running batch jobs to filter, aggregate, and prepare the data for analysis.

Real-time message ingestion: If a solution includes real-time sources, the architecture must
include a way to capture and store real-time messages for stream processing.
Stream processing: After capturing real-time messages, the solution must process them by
filtering, aggregating, and preparing the data for analysis. The processed stream data is then
written to an output sink. We can use open-source Apache streaming technologies like Storm and
Spark Streaming for this.

Analytical data store: Many big data solutions prepare data for analysis and then serve the
processed data in a structured format that can be queried using analytical tools. Example: Azure
Synapse Analytics provides a managed service for large-scale, cloud-based data warehousing.

Analysis and reporting: The goal of most big data solutions is to provide insights into the data
through analysis and reporting. To empower users to analyze the data, the architecture may
include a data modeling layer. Analysis and reporting can also take the form of interactive data
exploration by data scientists or data analysts.

Orchestration: Most big data solutions consist of repeated data processing operations that
transform source data, move data between multiple sources and sinks, load the processed data
into an analytical data store, or push the results straight to a report. To automate these
workflows, we can use an orchestration technology such as Azure Data Factory.

Big Data Characteristics:

Big data can be described by the following characteristics:
● Volume
● Variety
● Velocity
5 Vs of Big Data, Big Data technology components
5 Vs of Big Data :
1. Volume :
Big Data is a vast “volumes” of data generated from many sources daily, such as business
processes, machines, social media platforms, networks, human interactions, and so on.
Example: Facebook generates approximately a billion messages, 4.5 billion times the “Like”
button is recorded, and more than 350 million new posts are uploaded each day.
Big data technologies can handle large amounts of data.

2. Variety :
Big Data can be structured, unstructured, and semi-structured that are being collected from
different sources. Data were only collected from databases and sheets in the past, But these
days the data will come in an array of forms ie.- PDFs, Emails, audios, Social Media
posts, photos, videos, etc.

3. Velocity :
Velocity refers to the speed with which data is generated in real-time.
Velocity plays an important role compared to others.It contains the linking of incoming
data sets speeds, rate of change, and activity bursts. The primary aspect of Big Data is to
provide demanding data rapidly.
Example of data that is generated with high velocity - Twitter messages or Facebook
posts.

4. Veracity
Veracity refers to the quality of the data that is being analyzed. It is the process of being able to
handle and manage data efficiently.
Example: Facebook posts with hashtags.

5. Value :
Value is an essential characteristic of big data.
It is not the data that we process or store, it is valuable and reliable data that we store, process
and analyze.

Big Data Technology Components :

1. Ingestion :
The ingestion layer is the very first step of pulling in raw data.
It comes from internal sources, relational databases, non-relational databases,
social media, emails, phone calls etc.
There are two kinds of ingestions :

a) Batch, in which large groups of data are gathered and delivered together.
b) Streaming, which is a continuous flow of data. This is necessary for real-time
data analytics.

2. Storage :
Storage is where the converted data is stored in a data lake or warehouse and eventually
processed.
The data lake/warehouse is the most essential component of a big data
ecosystem.
It needs to contain only thorough, relevant data to make insights as valuable as possible.
It must be efficient with as little redundancy as possible to allow for quicker processing.

3. Analysis :
In the analysis layer, data gets passed through several tools, shaping it into actionable insights.
There are four types of analytics on big data :
● Diagnostic: Explains why a problem is happening.
● Descriptive: Describes the current state of a business through historical data.
● Predictive: Projects future results based on historical data.
● Prescriptive: Takes predictive analytics a step further by projecting best future efforts.

4. Consumption :
The final big data component is presenting the information in a format digestible to the end-user.
This can be in the forms of tables, advanced visualizations and even single numbers if requested.
The most important thing in this layer is making sure the intent and meaning of the output is
understandable.

Big Data importance and applications

Big Data Importance :
Big Data importance doesn’t revolve around the amount of data a company has but lies in the
fact that how the company utilizes the gathered data. Every company uses its collected data in its
own way. More effectively the company uses its data, more rapidly it grows.
By analyzing the big data pools effectively the companies can get answers to :
Cost Savings :
o Some tools of Big Data like Hadoop can bring cost advantages to business when large amounts
of data are to be stored.
o These tools help in identifying more efficient ways of doing business.

Time Reductions :
o The high speed of tools like Hadoop and in-memory analytics can easily identify new sources
of data which helps businesses analyzing data immediately.
o This helps us to make quick decisions based on the learnings.

Understand the market conditions :

o By analyzing big data we can get a better understanding of current market
conditions.
o For example: By analyzing customers’ purchasing behaviours, a company can find out the
products that are sold the most and produce products according to this trend. By this, it can get
ahead of its competitors.

Control online reputation :

o Big data tools can do sentiment analysis.
o Therefore, you can get feedback about who is saying what about your
company.
o If you want to monitor and improve the online presence of your business, then
big data tools can help in all this.

Using Big Data Analytics to Boost Customer Acquisition(purchase) and Retention

o The customer is the most important asset any business depends on.
o No single business can claim success without first having to establish a solid customer base.
o If a business is slow to learn what customers are looking for, then it is very likely to deliver
poor quality products.
o The use of big data allows businesses to observe various customer-related patterns and trends.
Using Big Data Analytics to Solve Advertisers Problem and Offer Marketing Insights :
o Big data analytics can help change all business operations.
o Like the ability to match customer expectations, changing
company’s product line, etc.
o And ensuring that the marketing campaigns are powerful.

Big Data Applications :

In today’s world big data have several applications, some of them are listed below :

Tracking Customer Spending Habit, Shopping Behavior :

In big retails stores, the management team has to keep data of customer’s spending habits,
shopping behaviour, most liked product, which product is being searched/sold most, based on
that data, the production/collection rate of that product gets fixed.
Recommendation :
By tracking customer spending habits, shopping behaviour, big retail stores provide
recommendations to the customers.
Smart Traffic System :
Data about the condition of the traffic of different roads, collected through cameras, GPS devices
placed in the vehicle. All such data are analyzed and jam-free or less jam way, less time taking
ways are recommended.
One more profit is fuel consumption can be reduced.
Secure Air Traffic System :
At various places of flight, sensors are present.
These sensors capture data like the speed of flight, moisture, temperature, and other
environmental conditions. Based on such data analysis, an environmental parameter within flight
is set up and varied.
By analyzing flight’s machine-generated data, it can be estimated how long the machine can
operate flawlessly and when it can be replaced/repaired.
Auto Driving Car :
In the various spots of the car camera, a sensor is placed that gathers data like the size of the
surrounding car, obstacle, distance from those, etc.
These data are being analyzed, then various calculations are carried out.
These calculations help to take action automatically.
Virtual Personal Assistant Tool :
Big data analysis helps virtual personal assistant tools like Siri, Cortana and Google Assistant to
provide the answer to the various questions asked by users.
This tool tracks the location of the user, their local time, season, other data related to questions
asked, etc.
Example: Suppose one user asks “Do I need to take Umbrella?”The tool collects data like
location of the user, season and weather condition at that location, then analyzes these data to
conclude if there is a chance of raining, then provides the answer.
IoT :
Manufacturing companies install IOT sensors into machines to collect operational data.
Analyzing such data, it can be predicted how long a machine will work without any problem
when it requires repair.
Thus, the cost to replace the whole machine can be saved.
Education Sector Energy Sector :
Online educational courses conducting organization utilize big data to search candidates
interested in that course.
If someone searches for a YouTube tutorial video on a subject, then an online or offline course
provider organization on that subject sends an ad online to that person about their course.
Media and Entertainment Sector :
Media and entertainment service providing company like Netflix,
Amazon Prime, Spotify do analysis on data collected from their users.
Data like what type of video, music users are watching, listening to most, how long users are
spending on site, etc are collected and analyzed to set the next business strategy.

Big Data features

security, compliance, auditing and protection

BIG DATA SECURITY :

Big data security is the collective term for all the measures and tools used to guard both the data
and analytics processes from attacks, theft, or other malicious activities that could harm or
negatively affect them.
For companies that operate on the cloud, big data security challenges are multi-faceted.
When customers give their personal information to companies, they trust them with personal data
which can be used against them if it falls into the wrong hands.
BIG DATA COMPLIANCE :
Data compliance is the practice of ensuring that sensitive data is organized and managed in such
a way as to enable organizations to meet enterprise business rules along with legal and
governmental regulations.
Organizations that don’t implement these regulations can be fined up to tens of millions of
dollars and even receive a 20-year penalty.
BIG DATA AUDITING :
Auditors can use big data to expand the scope of their projects and draw comparisons over larger
populations of data.
Big data also helps financial auditors to streamline the reporting process and detect fraud.
These professionals can identify business risks in time and conduct more relevant and accurate
audits.
BIG DATA PROTECTION :
Big data security is the collective term for all the measures and tools used to guard both the data
and analytics processes from attacks, theft, or other malicious activities that could harm or
negatively affect them.
That’s why data privacy is there to protect those customers but also companies and their
employees from security breaches.When customers give their personal information to
companies, they trust them with personal data which can be used against them if it falls into the
wrong hands.
Data protection is also important as organizations that don’t implement these regulations can be
fined up to tens of millions of dollars and even receive a 20-year penalty.
Big Data privacy and ethics Most data is collected through surveys, interviews, or observation.
When customers give their personal information to companies, they trust with personal data
which can be used against them if it falls into the wrong hands.

Big Data privacy and ethics

Most data is collected through surveys, interviews, or observation. When customers give their
personal information to companies, they trust them with personal data which can be used against
them if it falls into the wrong hands.

Big Data Analytics

Big data analytics is a complex process of examining big data to uncover information, such as -
hidden patterns, correlations, market trends and customer preferences.
Big Data analytics is a process used to extract meaningful insights, such as –
• hidden patterns,
• unknown correlations,
• market trends,
• and customer preferences.
This can help organizations make informed business decisions.
Data Analytics technologies and techniques give organizations a way to analyze data sets and
gather new information. Big Data Analytics enables enterprises to analyze their data in full
context quickly and some also offer real-time analysis.
Importance of Big Data Analytics :
Organizations use big data analytics systems and software to make data-driven decisions that can
improve business-related outcomes.
The benefits include more effective marketing, new revenue opportunities,customer
personalization and improved operational efficiency.With an effective strategy, these benefits
can provide competitive advantages over rivals.
Big Data Analytics tools also help businesses save time and money and aid in gaining insights to
inform data-driven decisions.Big Data Analytics enables enterprises to narrow their Big Data to
the most relevant information and analyze it to inform critical business decisions.
Challenges of conventional systems:
● Big data is the storage and analysis of large data sets.
● These are complex data sets that can be both structured or unstructured.
● They are so large that it is not possible to work on them with traditional
analytical tools.
● One of the major challenges of conventional systems was the uncertainty of the Data
Management Landscape.
● Big data is continuously expanding, there are new companies and technologies that are being
developed every day.
● A big challenge for companies is to find out which technology works bests for them without
the introduction of new risks and problems.
● These days, organizations are realising the value they get out of big data analytics and hence
they are deploying big data tools and processes to bring more efficiency in their work
environment.

Intelligent data analysis, nature of data

Intelligent Data Analysis (IDA) is one of the most important approaches in the
field of data mining.
Based on the basic principles of IDA and the features of datasets that IDA
handles, the development of IDA is briefly summarized from three aspects :
● Algorithm principle
● The scale
● Type of the dataset
Intelligent Data Analysis (IDA) is one of the major issues in artificial intelligence
and information.
Intelligent data analysis discloses hidden facts that are not known previously and
provide potentially important information or facts from large quantities of data.
It also helps in making a decision.
Based on machine learning, artificial intelligence, recognition of pattern, and
records and visualization technology, IDA helps to obtain useful information,
necessary data and interesting models from a lot of data available online in order
to make the right choices.
IDA includes three stages:
(1) Preparation of data
(2) Data mining
(3) Data validation and Explanation

Analytic processes and tools

Big Data Analytics is the process of collecting large chunks of structured/unstructured
data, segregating and analyzing it and discovering the patterns and other useful business
insights from it.
These days, organizations are realising the value they get out of big data analytics and
hence they are deploying big data tools and processes to bring more efficiency in their
work environment.
Many big data tools and processes are being utilised by companies these days in
the processes of discovering insights and supporting decision making.
Big data processing is a set of techniques or programming models to access large- scale
data to extract useful information for supporting and providing decisions.
Below is the list of some of the data analytics tools used most in the industry :
● R Programming (Leading Analytics Tool in the industry)
● Python
● Excel
● SAS
● Apache Spark
● Splunk
● RapidMiner
● Tableau Public

Analysis vs reporting
Reporting :
● Once data is collected, it will be organized using tools such as graphs and tables.
● The process of organizing this data is called reporting.
● Reporting translates raw data into information.
● Reporting helps companies to monitor their online business and be alerted when data falls
outside of expected ranges.
● Good reporting should raise questions about the business from its end users.
Analysis :
● Analytics is the process of taking the organized data and analyzing it.
● This helps users to gain valuable insights on how businesses can improve
their performance.
● Analysis transforms data and information into insights.
● The goal of the analysis is to answer questions by interpreting the data at a deeper level and
providing actionable recommendations.

Big Data Analytics Objectives

Modern data analytic tools

● These days, organizations are realising the value they get out of big data analytics and hence
they are deploying big data tools and processes to bring more efficiency to their work
environment.
● Many big data tools and processes are being utilized by companies these days in the processes
of discovering insights and supporting decision making.
● Data Analytics tools are types of application software that retrieve data from one or more
systems and combine it in a repository, such as a data warehouse, to be reviewed and analyzed.
● Most organizations use more than one analytics tool including spreadsheets with statistical
functions, statistical software packages, data mining tools, and predictive modeling tools.
● Together, these Data Analytics Tools give the organization a complete overview of the
company to provide key insights and understanding of the market/business so smarter decisions
may be made.
● Data analytics tools not only report the results of the data but also explain why the results
occurred to help identify weaknesses, fix potential problem areas, alert decision-makers to
unforeseen events and even forecast future results based on decisions the company might make.
● Below is the list some of data analytics tools :
● R Programming (Leading Analytics Tool in the industry)
● Python
● Excel
● SAS
● Apache Spark
● Splunk
● RapidMiner
● Tableau Public
● KNime