Big data refers to large, complex, and diverse data sets whose size continuously grows at an exponential rate. This data might be in a structured, semi-structured, or unstructured form. These data sets are beyond capturing, managing, and processing power of conventional relational database systems. Companies use them to conduct their business operations, and for this task, they need advanced data-mining software applications. Only then can these corporate enterprises expect to get better insights into their activities to make important decisions.
Big data has the following inherent characteristics:
- A high volume which can extend to over hundreds or thousands of petabytes,
- High velocity where the data accumulates at a fast rate for companies to process, analyze and interpret,
- High variety where data can be in many different formats like numeric, audio-visual, text documents or emails, and
- High variability refers to the inconsistencies the data exhibits, which makes it difficult to process and manage.
Importance of analyzing big data for companies
Companies need to properly process and analyze big data in the course of conducting their business operations. Each business, say specialists in database management and administration, will devise their way to collect, store, classify, analyze and effectively use this data. How these corporate enterprises achieve this objective determines their growth potential in the market.It opens up opportunities for them to outperform their rivals to gain a competitive edge over their peers. Companies can accumulate big data from numerous sources and scrutinize it to identify ways to:
- Reduce their overall operating costs by implementing effective methods of conducting their business operations,
- Minimize the time it takes to make better decisions or introduce new innovative products in the market,
- Get a clear understanding of the present market conditions by scrutinizing their customers’ buying patterns,
- Manage their online market reputation by analyzing the feedback of their customers on various social media platforms,
- Use the latest data mining software systems to boost customer acquisition, engagement, participation, and retention,
- Operate the latest data-mining software tools to solve the problems their advertisers face or to get better marketing insights,
- Innovate and revamp their current production lines to make their goods more appealing to their customers, and
- Utilize high-performance analytic software applications to harness their business data to advertise online frauds.
What is cloud- computing technology?
Cloud computing refers to the on-demand availability and delivery of relevant IT resources to companies via the Internet.They get access to the latest technological services and devices from a reliable service provider. These generally include virtual databases, analytical tools, network servers, data centers, and storage facilities. This vendor charges these corporate enterprises for the facilities they use according to pay-as-you-go pricing structure.All cloud-computing platforms have the following characteristics:
- On-demand IT resources which the companies can access without any human intervention from their service provider,
- A broad range of network accessing capabilities compatible on the latest laptops, workstations, smartphones or tablets,
- The pooling of a wide range of physical or virtual IT resources that cater to changing customer demands,
- Rapid elasticity and scaling of IT capabilities to adapt to changing market conditions, and
- Automatic controlling and optimizing of IT resources like processing speed and bandwidth via a metering system
Why should companies’ store and process big data using cloud-computing technology?
Specialists from the esteemed name in the field of remote database management and administration, RemoteDBA.com says big data offers companies of all sizes accurate and meaningful insights into the market where they conduct their activities. This enables corporate enterprises to offer better services to their customers after analyzing their buying patterns.
The proper utilization of this data helps them to automate their business processes with greater transparency. However, companies incur huge costs using big data to conduct their business operations. They need to operate the right data storage servers and analytical tools to process petabytes of data. This is why they should opt to store and process their big data on cloud-based servers. They can choose to hire reliable service providers that offer them any of the following delivery models:
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Under this service, the vendor offers the companies their cloud-based infrastructure and the responsibility of maintaining it,
- Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Here, the vendor provides them with all the relevant resources such as databases, run-time sequencing, object storage, and queuing. However, the companies are responsible for implementing and configuring the infrastructure according to their needs, or
- Software as a Service
In this service, the relevant settings and cloud-based infrastructure are already in place for the companies to operate.
Benefits of processing big data using cloud-computing technology
The advantages of utilizing the latest cloud-computing technology to process big data for companies are as follows:
- No capital investment
Companies have to incur huge capital expenditure on in-house infrastructure resources. Only then can they start processing big data for their business operations. This is not the case with cloud-computing technology.Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) models enable them to install the data servers at a fraction of the on-premises costs.
- Fast scalability
Cloud-computing technology not only provides companies with immense storage and analytic power to process big data, but they can even conveniently increase their infrastructure’s capacity to manage large spikes in data traffic. Moreover, they can do it without any breakdown in equipment or power outages.
- Instant disaster recovery to ensure operation continuity
Companies find their computer systems take a long time to become operational again in the aftermath of a cyber-attack. This is because the conventional disaster recovery strategies they employ cannot respond instantly to the crisis. The problem becomes worse when they use big data. Fortunately, this is not the case when they opt to use cloud-computing technology. They can expect instant recovery and back-upto avoid incurring huge losses.
Skilled DBAs in database management state the proper processing of big data presents immense opportunities for companies to grow in the market. However, the speed at which this data grows can overwhelm them.Conventional on-premises infrastructure cannot meet this challenge. They have to rely on cloud-computing technology. In doing so, they need to ensure the virtual data servers and centers meet their specific needs. Moreover, the vendor providing these facilities should have a good market reputation to invoke trust, database security, and market performance.
