College of Natural and Computational Science

School of Information Science

A paper on Big Data

In Partial Fulfillment of the Course

INFORMATION SYSTEMS STRATEGY AND MANAGEMENT (INSS 607)

Prepared by:
Name ID Number
Tsegaye Andargie GSR/6166/09

Submitted to: Instructor Gashaw K. (Ph. D)

Due date - March 15, 2017
 1. Introduction

Big data is a term that refers to data sets or combinations of data sets whose size (volume),
complexity (variability), and rate of growth (velocity) make them difficult to be captured, managed,
processed or analyzed by conventional technologies and tools, such as relational databases and
desktop statistics or visualization packages, within the time necessary to make them useful(Navint
Partners,2012). Furthermore, Big Data consists of structured and unstructured data (about 90% is
unstructured) and includes soft information such as email messages, social media postings (e.g.,
blogs, tweets, Facebook entries), phone calls, website traffic, and video streams (Syed, Gillela, &
Venugopal, 2013).

What is considered Big Data differs across various domains, and whether particular data are big or
not is determined by whether these data push the capability limits of the information systems that
work with these data (Vasarhelyi, Kogan, & Tuttle, 2015). Size used to determine whether a
particular data set is considered big data is not firmly defined and continues to change over time,
most analysts and practitioners currently refer to data sets from 30-50 terabytes extending to
multiple petabytes or zetabytes in clouds as big data(Navint partners,2012).

Manyika et al. describe big data as the amount of data beyond the ability of technology to store,
manage and process efficiently which in turn implies a high technology complex and multivariate
data to capture, store, distribute, manage and analyze the information. Relatively Big Data
technologies are new generation technologies and architectures which were designed to extract
value from multivariate high volume data sets efficiently by providing high speed capturing,
discovering and analyzing.

2. Evolution of big data

While the emergence of big data occurred only recently in this late two dacades, the act of gathering
and storing large amounts of data dates back to the early 1950s when the first commercial
mainframe computers were introduced.

Since the advent of the WWW, big data and data analytics have evolved through three major
stages(Lee,2017;Yaqoob et al,2016; Kathryn , Gabriel & Nicole, 2016) which are Big Data 1.0
(19942004) coincides with the advent of e-commerce; Big Data 2.0 (20052014) driven by web

Page - 1
2.0 and social media advent and lastly Big Data 3.0 (2015) which encompasses data from Big
Data 1.0 and Big Data 2.0 driven by IoT applications.

3. Characteristics of Big Data

Though it is difficult to truly define Big Data, practitioners in the field have put four specific
features of Big Data that challenge the capabilities of modern information systems ( Laney, 2001;
Zhang, Yang, & Appelbaum, 2015, Judith et al; Kathryn, Gabriel & Nicole,2016 ). These features,
known as the 4 Vs, include:

1. huge Volume the massive size of a typical dataset;

2. high Velocity data added on a continuous and fast basis;

3. huge Variety types of data, both structured and unstructured, and;

4. uncertain Veracity reliability, authenticity, and validity of data.

4. Why Big Data is important?

Big data provides great potential for firms in creating new businesses, developing new products and
services, and improving business operations. When big data is effectively and efficiently captured,
processed, and analyzed, companies are able to gain a more complete understanding of their
business, customers, products, competitors, etc. which can lead to efficiency improvements,
increased sales, lower costs, better decision making, better customer service, and/or improved
products and services. (Gotez,2014; Navint partner,2012; Yaqoob et al,2016). For example
personalized advertising that is finely adjusted to what consumers are looking for, and news articles
related interests of readers can be application areas of big data.

5. Sources of big data

Big data is a combination of different types of harsh data. The applications that are the main sources
of producing voluminous amounts of data, namely are Internet of Things (IoT), self-quantified,
multimedia, and social media data.

IoT data are generated by GPS devices, intelligent/smart cars, mobile computing devices, PDAs,
mobile phones and so on (Hashem et al., 2015).

Page - 2
Self-quantification data are generated by individuals by quantifying personal behavior. Data from
wristbands used to monitor movements and exercise and sphygmomano meters utilized to measure
blood pressure are examples of self-quantification data. This type of data helps build a connection
between behavior and psychology (Yang et al., 2014).

Multimedia data are generated from various sources, such as text, images, and audio, video, and
graphic objects. The growth rate of such type of data is very fast. Each individual connected to the
Internet generates multimedia data. On the ther hand social media data are generated by Facebook,
Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google-, Apple, Brands, Tumblr, Instagram, Flickr, Foursquare,
WordPress, and so on. The use of these social media causes increase in data generation( Yaqoob et
al, 2014).

6. Big data processing methods

Currently, individuals and enterprises focus on how to rapidly extract valuable information from
large amounts of data. The most commonly used processing methods utilized for big data are
Hashing, Indexing, Bloom Filter and Parallel computing(Lee,2017; Yang,2014).

Hashing is a process of used to transform data into shorter fixed-length numerical values so that
querying, reading and writing can be rapidly improved whereas Indexing is using pointers to
quickly locate data from voluminous amounts of dataset. Parallel computing is a way of
decomposing a problem and assign them to several separate process to be independently completed
to increase efficiency(Yaqoob et al, 2014).

6.1. Big data analysis techniques

Surpassing and extraordinary big data techniques are required to efficiently analyze large amounts
of data within a limited period of time. From these techniques the more applicable for analysis
purpose are data mining, web mining, Visualization methods, machine learning, optimized methods
and social network analysis(Yaqoob et al, 2014;Zhang,2015;Geng et al,2012;Philip Chen &
Zhang, 2014).

7. Big Data Challenges

Opportunities will always entail challenges and as any recent disruptive innovation, big data
presents multiple challenges to adopting firms.

Page - 3
Lee(2017) on this year business insider report, he highlight six technical and managerial challenges:
data quality, data security, privacy, investment justification, data management, and shortage of
qualified data scientists as major challenges around big data. Navint the management consulting
firm, has also surveyed others challenges like new, complex, and continuously emerging
technologies; cloud based solutions; privacy, security, and regulatory considerations; the need for
IT, data Analyst, and management Resources in big data(Navint partner,2012).

7. Application areas of Big Data

Nowadays Big Data is used efficiently in numerous fields. Exploring different articles and books I
have summarized the most applicable areas as of March 2017 as surveyed by the Nevent partners
consulting firm(2012), Lee(2017), Hakan et al(2015), and Yaqoob et al.(2016):

Automotive industry, Media and show business,

High technology and industry, Travel and transport sector,

Telecommunication sector, Social media and online services,

Medical field, Education and research,

Retail industry, Health services,

Packaged consumer products, Law enforcement and defense industry

9. Developing Big Data Strategy

Developing a strategy for a firm to follow in in the future based on big data need a heavy
assessment accordingly to the business system itself. The first step is studying the unstructured data
of the organization and proposing a solution based on Big Data to process it. Next figure out
sources and uses, volumes and metrics, estimated growth, privacy and regulator and lastly
Impact/value so one could see the basic Big Data assessment(Navint partner,2012).

The final draft should include basic information on organizational impacts, opportunity analysis,
method and tools, compliance with legacy systems, business case and lastly the ROI(return on
investment). This all would make sure that the firm will stand for technological changes and will
profit and gain the most benefit out of Big Data.

Page - 4
 10. Trends and future of big data

The interest through big data increases day by day specially in big data 3.0 after 2015 . The firms
with the ability to store large amount data carry their work one step further and provide an
advantage within the market. Firms like Google, Amazon, Facebook, YouTube, Walmart and eBay
have an advantage over the others in self-improvement and competition due to having a great
quantity of data(Hakan et al.,2015). Data processing and information retrieval has become as more
important as data storage.

For its own consumption Big Data has created too many opportunities in the years, from those the
major ones are Data analytics,NoSql databases,High-performance computing systems,Big data
indexing schemes,Analytics,Data quality,Visualization and Big Data security(Yaqoob et al., 2016).

11. Conclusion and Recommendations

Big datas emergence has not remained isolated to a few sectors or spheres of technology, instead
demonstrating broad applications across industries. To bet competitive advantages companies must
first pursue big data capabilities as necessary ground-level developments specially those who
handle vast and variety data everyday.

Big data is important because it enables organizations to gather, store, manage, and manipulate vast
amounts data at the right speed, at the right time and gain the right insights about their customers,
service and products.

12. References
A Navint Partners White Paper(2012), Why is BIG Data Important?, Available at:
<www.navint.com/images/Navint.BigData.FINAL.pdf>
Cao, M., Chychyla, R., & Stewart, T. (2015). Big Data analytics in financial statement audits.
Accounting Horizons, Vol. 29, No. 2, pp. 423429.
Cukier, K. (2010). Data, data everywhere. The Economist. Available at:
<http://www.economist.com/node/15557443>.
Erin Gleeson, Gregory B. Greenwood. (2015) Big Data Are All the RageFor Mountains,
TooMountain Research and Development,International Mountain Society, Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 87-
89.
Geng, B., Li, Y., Tao, D., Wang, M., Zha, Z. J., & Xu, C. (2012). P arallel lasso for large-scale video
concept detection. IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, vol. 14, No.1, pp. 5565

Page - 5
Hakan , Emin S.,Cevriye G. (2015), Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow of Big Data,World
Conference on Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Elsevier Ltd.
Hashem, I. A. T., Yaqoob, I., Anuar, N. B., Mokhtar, S., Gani, A., & Khan, S. U. (2015). The rise of
big data on cloud computing: Review and open research issues. Information Systems, Vol. 47,
pp. 98-115.
Judith H., Alan N., Dr. Nugent, Marcia K. (2013) Big Data for Dummies(1st Ed.), Jhon wiley &
Sons, Inc.
Kathryn E, Gabriel D., Nicole S.(2016) Mystery, Inc.: A Big Data case, Journal of Accounting
Education, Vol. 38 pp. 922, Elsevier Ltd.
Laney, D. (2001). 3D data management: Controlling data volume, velocity, and variety
Available at: <http://blogs.gartner.com/doug-laney/files/2012/01/ad949-3D-Data-Management-
Controlling-Data-Volume-Velocity-and-Variety.pdf>.
Lee I. (2017),Big data: Dimensions, evolution, impacts, and challenges, Business Horizons, Vol.
1363, Elsevier Ltd
Manyika, J., Chui, M., Brown, B., Bughin, J., Dobbs, R., Roxburgh, C., ... & McKinsey Global
Institute. (2011). Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity
Philip Chen, C., & Zhang, C.-Y. (2014). Data-intensive applications, challenges, techniques and
technologies: A survey on Big Data. Information Sciences , Vol. 275,pp. 314347.
Syed, A., Gillela, K., & Venugopal, C. (2013). The future revolution on Big Data. International
Journal of Advanced research in Computer and Communication Engineering, Vol. 2, No. 6, pp.
24462451.
Vasarhelyi, M. A., Kogan, A., & Tuttle, B. M. (2015). Big Data in accounting: An overview.
Accounting Horizons, Vol. 29 No. 2, pp. 381396
Yang, C., Zhang, X., Zhong, C., Liu, C., Pei, J., Ramamohanarao, K., & Chen, J. (2014). A
spatiotemporal compression based approach for efficient big data processing on Cloud. Journal
of Computer and System Sciences, Vol. 80, No. 8, pp. 1563-1583.
Yaqoob I., Ibrahim A, Abdullah G, Salimah M ,Athanasios V.2014), Big data: From beginning to
future, International Journal of Information Management, Vol. 36 pp. 12311247, Elsevier Ltd
Zhang, J., Yang, X., & Appelbaum, D. (2015). Toward effective Big Data analysis in continuous
auditing. Accounting Horizons, Vol. 29, No. 2, pp. 469470.

Page - 6