Big Data: You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet
While some latecomers are just beginning to explore Big Data, and others are just now beginning to take it seriously, early adopters are promising: you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. As to the limits of Big Data, what we have now is just the tip of an iceberg the size of which no one is quite sure. Today’s data sets are massive. So big, in fact, you can’t simply move them to the cloud -- at all. They are stuck in stasis unless data science can find a way. And it better, because the demand for higher capacity and better performing data systems is becoming a given. It’s basic human psychology – give us something good, and we immediately want better.
That “better” is exactly what data science pioneers are working on right now. What will better look like, how will it operate and how can they make it accessible to end users. The first step, of course, is how to get all those massive data sets generated by constant streams of mobile usage and other avenues into a place where the data can be parsed, cataloged, and utilized.
And that’s just step one. The next stage of Big Data, which is already well underway, is the development of better ways to capture and use real-world, real-time data. Grabbing data from streaming media, mobile devices and other “now” interfaces is the current golden goose in the Big Data game. Of course, capturing all that “now” data simply exacerbates the challenge being addressed in step one.
This leads us to step 3, the process of developing hardware and software that doesn’t exist yet to deal with data sets that are, as yet, inconceivable. How will that infrastructure look? How will it work and how will data scientists connect that potential to commercial viability. All these questions are currently being studied, leading to a massive increase in demand for data scientists and data-science-related engineers and creative developers.
Bottom line, far from going away or just another fad, Big Data is busy redefining the way both businesses and consumers use technology today, and developing the ways it will be utilized in the future.
Gennady Barsky is a real estate mogul who believes in the integration of business and Big Data.