Defining Big Data

IBA GroupMark HillaryWe have talked about Big Data on this blog before and tried to define it in a way that doesn’t require complex terms, but it is not easy. Many people have very conflicting views on what Big Data is and how their company uses – or will use – it.A fascinating feature article in the business journal Forbes explores 12 different definitions of Big Data, starting right from when the term was initially used in the 1990s. That’s right, we were all talking about Big Data back in the 90s – it’s not a recent term. The first known recorded use of the term was in a paper published by NASA in 1997 describing their problems of trying to work with enormous data sets that could not be loaded into a computer at once.The Oxford English Dictionary is possibly the best place to turn for a simple non-technical definition: “data of a very large size, typically to the extent that its manipulation and management present significant logistical challenges.” That’s clear and focused, but also doesn’t really give away any clues about the scale of the challenge faced when manipulating many Big Data sets.Wikipedia uses a very similar definition to the OED, but the advantage of Wikipedia is that the crowd updates it regularly. As attitudes to Big Data change in the IT marketplace, the online definition can change. The latest Wikipedia definition (last updated on Sep 1) says: “Big data is an all-encompassing term for any collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process using on-hand data management tools or traditional data processing applications.”Is it possible to define big data inside 140 characters? If you can, then why not tweet your answer to @ibagroup?