Big Data Analytics: Scaling Up and Out in the Event-Enabled Enterprise: By Michael O’Connell, PhD

Big Data Analytics: Scaling Up and Out in the Event-Enabled Enterprise 2 “Big Data” refers to datasets whose size is beyond the ability of typical database software to capture, store, manage, and analyze (McKinsey Global Institute, May 2011). Big data sometimes arise from machine systems, e.g., log files that are constantly appending transactions. These data are growing rapidly; for example, the number of connected devices exceeded the world population before the end of 2011, and will reach 15 billion in 2015. In practical terms, “big data” is used to refer to high volume, high velocity, high variety and high complexity. Gartner refers to this combination of data volume, velocity, variety and complexity as “Extreme Information.”