Big Data at Work

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Why Big Data Is Important to You and Your Organization

Big data is undeniably big, but it’s also a bit misnamed. It’s a catchall term for data that doesn’t fit the usual containers. Big data refers to data that is too big to fit on a single server, too unstructured to fit into a row-and-column database, or too continuously flowing to fit into a static data warehouse. While its size receives all the attention, the most difficult aspect of big data really involves its lack of structure.

Books like this one generally start by talking about how much data there is in the world. You know the numbers and the comparisons—the average company has 427 times the amount of data ever recorded in the Library of Congress. Facebook has more photographic data ...