Statistics for Big Data For Dummies

Chapter 2

Characteristics of Big Data: The Three Vs

In This Chapter

Understanding the characteristics of big data and how it can be classified

Checking out the features of the latest methods for storing and analyzing big data

The phrase big data refers to datasets (collections of data) that are too massive for traditional database management systems (DBMS) to handle properly. The rise of big data has occurred for several reasons, such as the massive increase in e-commerce, the explosion of social media usage, the advent of video and music websites, and so forth.

Big data requires more sophisticated approaches than those used in the past to handle surges of information. This chapter explores the characteristics of big data and introduces the newer approaches that have been developed to handle it.

Characteristics of Big Data

The three main characteristics that define big data are generally considered to be volume, velocity, and variety. These are the three Vs. Volume is easy to understand. There’s a lot of data. Velocity suggests that the data comes in faster than ever and must be stored faster than ever. Variety refers to the wide variety of data structures that may need to be stored. The mixture of incompatible data formats provides another challenge that couldn’t be easily ...