From Big Data to Smart Data

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What is Big Data?

1) A “marketing” approach derived from technology that the information technologies (IT) industry (and its associated players) comes up on a regular basis.

2) A reality we felt coming for a long time in the world of business (mostly linked to the growth of the Internet), but that did not yet have a name.

3) The formalization of a phenomenon that has existed for many years, but that has intensified with the growing digitalization of our world.

The answer is undoubtedly all three at the same time. The volume of available data continues to grow, and it grows in different formats, whereas the cost of storage continues to fall (see Figure 1.1), making it very simple to store large quantities of data. Processing this data (its volume and its format), however, is another problem altogether. Big Data (in its technical approach) is concerned with data processing; Smart Data is concerned with analysis, value and integrating Big Data into business decision-making processes.

Big Data should be seen as new data sources that the business needs to integrate and correlate with the data it already has, and not as a concept (and its associated solutions) that seeks to replace Business Intelligence (BI). Big Data is an addition to and completes the range of solutions businesses have implemented for data processing, use and distribution to shed light on their decision-making, whether it is for strategic or operational ends.

Figure 1.1. In 1980, 20 GB of storing space weighed ...