Introduction To Big Data

Big data is a big buzz word  and everyone seems to be talking about it, but what  exactly is big data ? Where is this data coming from, how is it being processed, and how are the results being used?
What is big data?
Big data can be characterised as data that has high volume,high variety and high velocity. Data includes numbers, text, images, audio, video, or any other kind of information you might store on your computer. Volume, velocity, and variety are sometimes called “the 3 V’s of big data.”
What kind of datasets are considered big data?
Examples includes social media network analyzing their members’ data to learn more about them and connect them with content and advertising relevant to their interests, or search engines looking at the relationship between queries and results to give better answers to users’ questions.
How is big data analyzed?
One of the best known methods for turning raw data into useful information is by what is known as MapReduce. MapReduce is a method for taking a large data set and performing computations on it across multiple computers, in parallel. It serves as a model for how program, and is often used to refer to the actual implementation of this model.
MapReduce consists of two parts. The Map function does sorting and filtering, taking data and placing it inside of categories so that it can be analysed. The Reduce function provides a summary of this data by combining it all together.