The 3 VS of Big Data

When we hear about Big Data, we can't help but wonder if there is a difference between "Data" and "Big Data". 

As far as data is concerned, the subject remains simple. It is about qualitative or quantitative variables, which can be structured, machine-readable, personal or not, digital or analogue. A rather broad definition. They are simply set or series of data of individual points used to generate information and create information, knowledge. 

Regarding big data, the definition is more complex, it is not just more data. 

The main difference is summarized as the 3 Vs of Big Data: Volume, Velocity and Variety.

Volume: it refers to the amount of data. 

To give you an idea with something we all know, social media. Volume is the amount of data generated by websites, portals and online applications. 

In 2019 worldwide, Facebook had 2.27 billion active users, 1.9 billion for Youtube, 1.5 billion for WhatsApp, mainly 1.1 billion for WeChat and 1 billion for Instagram. Every day, users send billions of messages, images, videos, posts, ... All these interactions generate huge amounts of data.

Velocity: the speed at which data is received and processed. It is often mistakenly equated with real-time analysis. However, velocity also refers to the rate of change, the linking of data sets arriving at different speeds, and bursts of activity, rather than the usual regular rhythm.

Going back to our social networking example, we saw earlier that the amount of data generated every second is immense. For businesses, this represents a huge rate of incoming data flow that big data helps to accept and process quickly.

Variety: it refers to all the types of data that are available, including structured and unstructured.

We talk about texts, tweets, pictures and videos, we talk about structured data. 

Emails, voicemails, hand-written text, audio recording, … represent unstructured data.

The majority of the data is structured.

Data development and its consequent value has changed the way we view data. There was a time when we didn't see the value of data in the business world, but we have come to use it daily with the change in the way we collect it.

References:

Kaminskiy D., 2017. 'What's the difference between 'Big Data' and 'Data?', digileaders.com. Available at: https://digileaders.com/whats-difference-big-data-data/

'What is Big Data', oracle.com. Available at: https://www.oracle.com/ie/big-data/guide/what-is-big-data.html

2017. 'Understanding the 3 Vs of Big Data - Volume, Velocity and Variety', whishworks.com. Available at: https://www.whishworks.com/blog/big-data/understanding-the-3-vs-of-big-data-volume-velocity-and-variety

Sicular S., 2013. 'Gartner's Big Data Definition Consists of Three Parts, Not to Be Confused with Three "V"s', Forbes. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/gartnergroup/2013/03/27/gartners-big-data-definition-consists-of-three-parts-not-to-be-confused-with-three-vs/#4be658ab42f6

Guadani D., 2019. 'Top 20 Social Networks  By Active Users 2019', innerarchitect.com. Available at: https://www.innerarchitect.com/top-20-social-networks-by-active-users-2019/