Unit 1

What is Big Data

Data which are very large in size is called Big Data. Normally we work on data of size
MB(WordDoc ,Excel) or maximum GB(Movies, Codes) but data in Peta bytes i.e. 10^15 byte size
is called Big Data. It is stated that almost 90% of today's data has been generated in the past 3
years.

Big data can be defined as a concept used to describe a large volume of data, which are both
structured and unstructured, and that gets increased day by day by any system or business.
However, it is not the quantity of data, which is essential.

Sources of Big Data

These data come from many sources like

Social networking sites: Facebook, Google, LinkedIn all these sites generates huge amount of
data on a day to day basis as they have billions of users worldwide.

E-commerce site: Sites like Amazon, Flipkart, Alibaba generates huge amount of logs from which
users buying trends can be traced.

Weather Station: All the weather station and satellite gives very huge data which are stored and
manipulated to forecast weather.

Telecom company: Telecom giants like Airtel, Vodafone study the user trends and accordingly
publish their plans and for this they store the data of its million users.

Share Market: Stock exchange across the world generates huge amount of data through its
daily transaction.

Big Data Characteristics

Big Data contains a large amount of data that is not being processed by traditional data storage
or the processing unit. It is used by many multinational companies to process the data and
business of many organizations. The data flow would exceed 150 exabytes per day before
replication.

There are five v's of Big Data that explains the characteristics.
5 V's of Big Data
o Volume
o Veracity
o Variety
o Value
o Velocity
Volume
The name Big Data itself is related to an enormous size. Big Data is a vast 'volumes' of data
generated from many sources daily, such as business processes, machines, social media platforms,
networks, human interactions, and many more.
Variety
a. Big Data can be structured, unstructured, and semi-structured that are being collected from
different sources. Data will only be collected from databases and sheets in the past, But these
days the data will comes in array forms, that are PDFs, Emails, audios, SM posts, photos,
videos, etc.

The data is categorized as below:

b. Structured data: In Structured schema, along with all the required columns. It is in a
tabular form. Structured Data is stored in the relational database management system.
c. Semi-structured: In Semi-structured, the schema is not appropriately defined, e.g., JSON,
XML, CSV, TSV, and email. OLTP (Online Transaction Processing) systems are built to work
with semi-structured data. It is stored in relations, i.e., tables.
d. Unstructured Data: All the unstructured files, log files, audio files, and image files are
included in the unstructured data. Some organizations have much data available, but
they did not know how to derive the value of data since the data is raw.
e. Quasi-structured Data:The data format contains textual data with inconsistent data
formats that are formatted with effort and time with some tools.
Example: Web server logs, i.e., the log file is created and maintained by some server that contains
a list of activities.
Veracity
Veracity means how much the data is reliable. It has many ways to filter or translate the data.
Veracity is the process of being able to handle and manage data efficiently. Big Data is also
essential in business development.
For example, Facebook posts with hashtags.

Value
Value is an essential characteristic of big data. It is not the data that we process or store. It
is valuable and reliable data that we store, process, and also analyze.

Velocity
Velocity plays an important role compared to others. Velocity creates the speed by which the
data is created in real-time. It contains the linking of incoming data sets speeds, rate of change,
and activity bursts. The primary aspect of Big Data is to provide demanding data rapidly.
Big data velocity deals with the speed at the data flows from sources like application logs,
business processes, networks, and social media sites, sensors, mobile devices, etc.
In recent years, Big Data was defined by the “3Vs” but now there is “6Vs” of Big Data which are
also termed as the characteristics of Big Data as follows :
 1. Volume:
 The name ‘Big Data’ itself is related to a size which is enormous.
 Volume is a huge amount of data.
 To determine the value of data, size of data plays a very crucial role. If the volume of data is
very large then it is actually considered as a ‘Big Data’. This means whether a particular data
can actually be considered as a Big Data or not, is dependent upon the volume of data.
 Hence while dealing with Big Data it is necessary to consider a characteristic ‘Volume’.
 Example: In the year 2016, the estimated global mobile traffic was 6.2 Exabytes(6.2 billion
GB) per month. Also, by the year 2020 we will have almost 40000 ExaBytes of data.
2. Velocity:
 Velocity refers to the high speed of accumulation of data.
 In Big Data velocity data flows in from sources like machines, networks, social media, mobile
phones etc.
 There is a massive and continuous flow of data. This determines the potential of data that
how fast the data is generated and processed to meet the demands.
 Sampling data can help in dealing with the issue like ‘velocity’.
 Example: There are more than 3.5 billion searches per day are made on Google. Also,
FaceBook users are increasing by 22%(Approx.) year by year.
3. Variety:
 It refers to nature of data that is structured, semi-structured and unstructured data.
 It also refers to heterogeneous sources.
 Variety is basically the arrival of data from new sources that are both inside and outside of
an enterprise. It can be structured, semi-structured and unstructured .
 Structured data: This data is basically an organized data. It generally refers
to data that has defined the length and format of data.
 Semi- Structured data: This data is basically a semi-organised data. It is
generally a form of data that do not conform to the formal structure of data. Log
files are the examples of this type of data.
 Unstructured data: This data basically refers to unorganized data. It
generally refers to data that doesn’t fit neatly into the traditional row and column
structure of the relational database. Texts, pictures, videos etc. are the examples
of unstructured data which can’t be stored in the form of rows and columns.
4. Veracity:
 It refers to inconsistencies and uncertainty in data, that is data which is available can
sometimes get messy and quality and accuracy are difficult to control.
 Big Data is also variable because of the multitude of data dimensions resulting from multiple
disparate data types and sources.
 Example: Data in bulk could create confusion whereas less amount of data could convey half
or Incomplete Information.
5. Value:
 After having the 4 V’s into account there comes one more V which stands for Value!. The
bulk of Data having no Value is of no good to the company, unless you turn it into
something useful.
 Data in itself is of no use or importance but it needs to be converted into something
valuable to extract Information. Hence, you can state that Value! is the most important V of
all the 6V’s.
6. Variability:
 How fast or ,available data that extent is the structure of your data is changing ?.
 How often does the meaning or shape of your data!to?change?.
 example : if you are eating same ice-cream daily and the taste just keep changing.
  Operational Big Data: comprises of data on systems such as MongoDB, Apache
Cassandra, or CouchDB, which offer equipped capabilities in real-time for large data
operations.
 Analytical Big Data: comprises systems such as MapReduce, BigQuery, Apache Spark, or
Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) database, which offer analytical competence to
process complex analysis on large datasets.
Challenges of Big Data

 Rapid Data Growth: The growth velocity at such a high rate creates a problem to look for
insights using it. There no 100% efficient way to filter out relevant data.
 Storage: The generation of such a massive amount of data needs space for storage, and
organizations face challenges to handle such extensive data without suitable tools and
technologies.
 Unreliable Data: It cannot be guaranteed that the big data collected and analyzed are
totally (100%) accurate. Redundant data, contradicting data, or incomplete data are
challenges that remain within it.
 Data Security: Firms and organizations storing such massive data (of users) can be a
target of cybercriminals, and there is a risk of data getting stolen. Hence, encrypting such
colossal data is also a challenge for firms and organizations.
What are the four elements of big data?
There are four major components of big data.
 Volume. Volume refers to how much data is actually collected. ...
 Veracity. Veracity relates to how reliable data is. ...
 Velocity. Velocity in big data refers to how fast data can be generated, gathered and
analyzed. ...
 Variety.
Types of Data,
Big data is classified in three ways:
 Structured Data.
 Unstructured Data.
 Semi-Structured Data.

 Advantages & Disadvantages of Big

Data
 Big data is a rapidly generated collection of both structured and unstructured
data that is extremely large in volume. Big data production increases
exponentially over time, and it is anticipated that this product will double every
two years.
 Scala and Hadoop are two of the most well-liked open-source big data
frameworks. The use of programming languages is crucial for big data analytics.
For instance, MapReduce applications can be created in Python, C++, or R,
whereas the Hadoop big data framework is implemented in Java.


 Search engines, social media platforms, mobile devices, service networks, public
records, and connected devices like smart TVs are the primary sources of big data
collection. Businesses can access additional information sources to obtain big
 data. Huge datasets can be stored in a structured, unstructured, or semi-
structured database for later processing and analysis after they have been
collected. Big data is frequently stored in NoSQL databases because they offer
high performance when handling huge data volumes at scale.

10 Reasons why Big Data is the Future of India

IT workers with analytics expertise are in high demand as businesses attempt to maximise the
potential of big data

Thanks to technological improvements such as greater access to massive volumes of data, big
data has a bright future ahead of it, allowing organisations to gain more insights, increase
performance, generate revenue, and evolve more swiftly. Data and analytics, as well as artificial
intelligence (AI) technologies, will be critical in the quest to predict, prepare for and respond
proactively and quickly to a global recession and its effects.

Analytical Professionals are in High Demand

“Data is meaningless without the expertise to evaluate it,” says Jeanne Harris, a senior executive
at the Accenture Institute for High Performance. There are many more job openings in big data
and analytics this year than there are now last year, and many Technology professionals are
willing to put in the time and money to learn. Indeed.com’s job system to measure for data
analytics shows that there is still a rising trend for it and as a result, the number of employment
possibilities is steadily increasing.

Massive Job Openings and Closing the Skill Gap

The demand for analytical talents is rapidly increasing, yet there is a significant supply gap. This
is happening all across the world and isn’t limited to a specific spot. Regardless of the fact
that data analytics is a “popular” career, there are still a lot of unfilled positions due to a global
skills shortage. According to a McKinsey Global Institute study, the United States would be
short 190,000 data scientists and 1.5 million managers and analysts that can analyse and make
choices based on big data by 2018.
Salary Aspects
The increasing importance of data analytics expertise is driving up rates for competent experts,
and big data is willing to pay top dollar for the right people. According to the Institute of
Analytics Professionals of Australia (IAPA2015Skillsand)’s Compensation Survey Report, the
annual median salary for data analysts in Australia is US$130,000, up 4% from the previous
year. IAPA’s membership has increased to over 5000 members in Australia since its inception in
2006, reflecting the growing demand for analytics experts.

In many organisations big data analytics is a top priority

Data analytics is one of the top objectives for the organisations who participated in the study,
according to the conclusions of the ‘Advanced Research with Big Data Analytics’ research, since
they feel it enhances their businesses’ performance. More than 60% of respondents said big data
technology helps them improve their social media marketing abilities in their sector. The Quin
Street poll supports the notion that analytics is the need of the hour among large enterprises.

The use of big data analytics is increasing

Increasingly complex data analytics on vast, heterogeneous datasets has become simpler thanks
to technological advancements. According to the survey, more than a quarter of respondents are
now employing analytics tools on large datasets for jobs such as business analytics, predictive
modelling, and data mining. The usage of crucial analytics technology has expanded as a result
of data analytics offering a competitive advantage.

Data analytics help in decision making

Many businesses use analytics as a competitive advantage. Without a question. According to
Tom Davenport’s ‘Analytics Advantage’ poll, 96% of respondents believe analytics will grow
more vital to their companies. This is due to the large amount of data that is not being utilised,
and only rudimentary analytics are being performed at this time. About 49% of respondents feel
that analytics is a critical aspect in improving decision-making abilities. Another 16% think it’s
great because of its excellent strategic efforts.

Unstructured and semi-structured data analytics are on the rise

According to a big data analytics survey, unstructured and semi-structured analytics are rapidly
growing in popularity. Weblogs, social networks, e-mail, photos and multimedia are among the
unstructured data sources being processed and analysed by 84% of respondents. The remaining
respondents stated that they are in the process of putting them into action within the next 12 to 18
months.

Surpassing big data analytics market forecasts/predictions

Big data analytics came out on top in a Nimbus Ninety poll as being the most disruptive
technology that will have the most impact in three years. Over the 2020-2025 timeframe, the data
analytics global market for apps and analytics technology will expand at a 32% CAGR, while
cloud Technology will grow at a 20 percent CAGR, computing technology will grow at a 10%
CAGR and NoSQL technology will develop at a 20 percent CAGR.

Various job titles and types of analytics are available

From a professional aspect, there are several possible choices in terms of industry and
employment type. There is a multitude of job descriptions available because analytics is
employed in several different businesses. Data scientists earn more than 75 lakh per year,
as compared to 8-15 lakh for CAs as well as 5-8 lakh for engineers with the same level of
experience. The US$2 billion data and analytics business is encouraging graduates because of a
skewed demand-supply imbalance.

Big data analytics is used everywhere

Because of its numerous benefits, big data analytics is undoubtedly in high demand. The
enormous growth is indeed due to the wide range of industries in which Analytics is used. The
image below shows the various job opportunities available in various domains.

FUTURE OF BIG DATA:

Once global data started to grow exponentially a decade ago, it has shown no signs of slowing
down. It‘s aggregated mainly via the internet, including social networks, web search requests,
text messages, and media files. Another gigantic share of data is created by IoT devices and
sensors. They are the key drivers for the global big data market growth, which has already has
reached 49 billion dollars in size, according to Statista.
The world is powered by big data now forcing companies to seek experts in data analytics,
capable to harness complex data processing. But will it be the same in the future? In this article,
you will find experts’ opinions and five predictions on the future of big data.
1. Data volumes will continue to increase and migrate to the cloud

The majority of big data experts agree that the amount of generated data will be growing
exponentially in the future. In its Data Age 2025 report for Seagate, IDC forecasts the global
datasphere will reach 175 zettabytes by 2025. To help you understand how big it is, let’s measure
this amount in 128GB iPads. In 2013, the stack would have stretched two-thirds of the distance
from the Earth to the Moon. By 2025, this stack would have grown 26 times longer.

What makes experts believe in such a rapid growth? First, the increasing number of internet
users doing everything online, from business communications to shopping and social
networking.

Second, billions of connected devices and embedded systems that create, collect and share a
wealth of IoT data analytics every day, all over the world.
As enterprises gain the opportunity for real-time big data an, they will get to create and manage
60% of big data in the near future. However, individual consumers have a significant role to play
in data growth, too. In the same report, IDC also estimates that 6 billion users, or 75% of the
world’s population, will be interacting with online data every day by 2025. In other terms, each
connected user will be having at least one data interaction every 18 seconds.
Such large datasets are challenging to work with in terms of their storage and processing. Until
recently, big data processing challenges were solved by open-source ecosystems, such as Hadoop
and NoSQL. However, open-source technologies require manual configuration and
troubleshooting, which can be rather complicated for most companies. In search for more
elasticity, businesses started to migrate big data to the cloud.

AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform have transformed the way big data is stored
and processed. Before, when companies intended to run data-intensive apps, they needed to
 physically grow their own data centers. Now, with its pay-as-you-go services, the cloud
infrastructure provides agility, scalability, and ease of use.
This trend will certainly continue into the 2020s, but with some adjustments:
 Hybrid environments. Many companies can’t store sensitive information in the cloud, so they
choose to keep a certain amount of data on premises and move the rest to the cloud.
 Multi-cloud environments. Some companies wanting to address their business needs to the
fullest choose to store data using a combination of clouds, both public and private.
2. Machine learning will continue to change the landscape

Playing a huge role in big data, machine learning is another technology expected to impact our
future drastically.
Machine learning is becoming more sophisticated with every passing year. We are yet to see its
full potential—beyond self-driving cars, fraud detection devices, or retail trends analyses.

Wei Li

Vice President and General Manager at Intel

Machine learning is a rapidly developing technology used to augment everyday operations and
business processes. ML projects have received the most funding in 2019, compared to all other
AI systems combined:

Not until recently, machine learning and AI applications have been unavailable to most
companies due to the domination of open-source platforms. Though open-source platforms were
developed to make technologies closer to people, most businesses lack skills to configure
required solutions on their own. Oh, the irony.
The situation has changed once commercial AI vendors started to build connectors to open-
source AI and ML platforms and provide affordable solutions that do not require complex
configurations. What’s more, commercial vendors offer the features open-source platforms
currently lack, such as ML model management and reuse.
Meanwhile, experts believe that computers’ ability to learn from data will improve considerably
due to the application of unsupervised machine learning approach, deeper personalization, and
cognitive services. As a result, there will be machines that are more intelligent and capable to
read emotions, drive cars, explore the space, and treat patients.
What fascinates me is combining big data with machine learning and especially natural language
processing, where computers do the analysis by themselves to find things like new disease
patterns.

Bernard Marr

Author, Big Data: Using SMART Big Data, Analytics and Metrics to Make Better Decisions and
Improve Performance
This is intriguing and scary at the same time. On the one hand, intelligent robots promise to
make our lives easier. On the other hand, there is an ethical and regulatory issue, pertaining to
the use of machine learning in banking for making loan decisions, for example. Such giants as
Google and IBM are already pushing for more transparency by accompanying their machine
learning models with the technologies that monitor bias in algorithms.
3. Data scientists and CDOs will be in high demand

The positions of Data Scientists and Chief Data Officers (CDOs) are relatively new, but the need
for these specialists on the labor market is already high. As data volumes continue to grow, the
gap between the need and the availability of data professionals is already large.
In 2019, KPMG surveyed 3,600 CIOs and technology executives from 108 countries and found
out that 67% of them struggled with skill shortages (which were all-time high since 2008), with
the top three scarcest skills being big data/analytics, security, and AI.

No wonder data scientists are among the top fastest-growing jobs today, along with machine
learning engineers and big data engineers. Big data is useless without analysis, and data scientists
are those professionals who collect and analyze data with the help of analytics and reporting
tools, turning it into actionable insights.
 To rank as a good data scientist, one should have the deep knowledge of:
 Data platforms and tools

 Programming languages

 Machine learning algorithms

 Data manipulation techniques, such as building data pipelines, managing ETL processes, and
prepping data for analysis

Striving to improve their operations and gain a competitive edge, businesses are willing to pay
higher salaries to such talents. This makes the future look bright for data scientists.
Also, in an additional attempt to bridge the skill gap, businesses now also grow data scientists
from within the companies. These professionals, dubbed citizen data scientists, are no strangers
to creating advanced analytical models, but they hold the position outside the analytics field per
se. However, with the help of technologies, they are able to do heavy data science processing
without having a data science degree.
The situation is unclear with the chief data officer role, though. CDO is a C-level executive
responsible for big data governance, availability, integrity, and security in a company. As more
business owners realize the importance of this role, hiring a CDO is becoming the norm, with
67.9% of major companies already having a CDO in place, according to the Big Data and AI
Executive Survey 2019 by NewVantage Partners.
However, the CDO position stays ill-defined, particularly in terms of the responsibilities or, to be
more precise, the way these responsibilities should be split between CDOs, data scientists, and
CIOs. It’s one of the roles that can’t be ‘one-size-fits-all’ but depends on the business needs of
particular companies as well as their digital maturity. Consequently, the CDO position is going
to see a good share of restructuring and evolve along with the world becoming more data-driven.
4. Privacy will remain a hot issue

Data security and privacy have always been pressing issues, showing a massive snowballing
potential. Ever-growing data volumes create additional challenges in protecting it from intrusions
and cyberattacks, as the levels of data protection can’t keep up with the data growth rates.
 There are several reasons behind the data security problem:
 Security skill gap, caused by a lack of education and training opportunities. This gap is
constantly growing and will reach 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity positions by 2021,
according to Cybercrime Magazine.
 Evolution of cyberattacks. The threats used by hackers are evolving and become more complex
by the day.
 Irregular adherence to security standards. Although the governments are taking measures to
standardize data protection regulations, GDPR being the example, most organizations still ignore
data security standards.
Statistics demonstrate the scale of the problem. Statista calculated the average cyber losses which
amounted to $1.56 million for mid-sized companies in the last fiscal year, and $4.7 million
across all company sizes, as of May 2019.
Apart from the EU’s GDPR, many states in the US have passed their own privacy protection
laws, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act. As these laws bring out severe consequences
for non-compliance, companies have to take data privacy into account.
Another point of concern is reputation. Though many organizations treat privacy policies as a
default legal routine, users have changed their attitude. They understand that their personal
information is at stake, so they are drawn to those organizations that provide transparency and
user-level control over data.
It's no wonder that C-level executives identify data privacy as their top data priority, along with
cybersecurity and data ethics. Compared to 2018, companies invested five times more into
cybersecurity in 2019:

5. Fast data and actionable data will come to the forefront

Yet another prediction about the big data future is related to the rise of what is called ‘fast data’
and ‘actionable data’.
Unlike big data, typically relying on Hadoop and NoSQL databases to analyze information in the
batch mode, fast data allows for processing in real-time streams. Stream processing enables real-
time big data analytics within as little as just one millisecond. This brings more value to
organizations that can make business decisions and take actions immediately when data arrives.
Fast data has also spoilt users, making them addicted to real-time interactions. As businesses are
getting more digitized, which drives better customer experience, consumers expect to access data
on the go. What’s more, they want it personalized. In the research cited above, IDC predicts that
nearly 30% of the global data will be real-time by 2025.
Actionable data is the missing link between big data and business value. As it was mentioned
earlier, big data in itself is worthless without analysis since it is too complex, multi-structured,
and voluminous. By processing data with the help of analytical platforms, organizations can
make information accurate, standardized, and actionable. These insights help companies make
more informed business decisions, improve their operations, and design more big data use cases.

Big data is transforming businesses and driving growth throughout the global economy.

Businesses across all industries have benefited by using big data to protect their databases,
aggregate large volumes of information, and make better-informed decisions. The financial
industry, for example, uses big data as a crucial tool to make profitable decisions, while other
data organizations consider it an asset to protect against fraud and detect patterns in large
datasets.

What is Big Data?

Big data is a field that deals with massive data sets that are too complex to manage using
traditional data management methods. Organizations mine unstructured and structured data,
leveraging machine learning and predictive modeling techniques to extract meaningful insights.
With these findings, managers are able to make data-driven decisions that solve key business
problems.

There are several technical skills that individuals must acquire to succeed in this field, including
data mining, data visualization, programming, and other analytics skills. Due to the various
challenges in learning these skills, the need for professionals in this field continues to increase,
making the big data field a sought-after career path.
Is Big Data Still in Demand?

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) anticipates data-related occupations will grow by
more than 31 percent by 2030, creating a plethora of new jobs in the same time period.
Increasingly, top companies are in need of qualified professionals to fill those emerging roles.
However, professionals with these specialized skills are difficult to find, meaning data jobs pay
quite well for those with the right expertise.

Salaries for big data careers are increasing just as quickly as the demand for skilled
professionals. Many of these jobs report compensation well into the six-figure range and above
market value in order to compete in the talent war.

Is a Degree Needed for a Big Data Career?

A majority of these jobs require candidates with both experience and advanced degrees. In a fast-
growing field, that’s not easy to find. Eighty-one percent of all data science and analytics job
postings seek workers with at least three years of prior work experience, and 39 percent of these
roles—the highest-paying ones, in particular—require a relevant master’s degree.

An important factor to remember is that senior data analysts, business analysts, and other big
data professionals will most likely differ in the kinds of degrees they pursued to get into the field.

Master of Science degrees are the overarching similarity for these professionals;, however, their
education can vary in what areas they focus on, such as data science or business analytics.
Regardless of which specialization they choose, individuals with a relevant master’s degree in
big data can look forward to generating a successful career in this incredibly lucrative industry.

But which big data careers pay the highest? Here’s a look at the most coveted positions, their
salaries, and the skills you’ll need to qualify.

Top 10 Big Data Careers

Big data’s impact on various businesses has further catapulted the job opportunities available for
professionals in the field. Here are ten of the top careers within big data for employers and job
seekers alike.
1. Big Data Engineer

Median Salary: $151,300

Big data engineers are similar to data analysts in that they turn large volumes of data into
insights that organizations can use to make smarter business decisions. However, they’re also
tasked with retrieving, interpreting, analyzing, and reporting on a business’s data—which they
typically have to gather from a variety of different sources.

These professionals are also often responsible for creating and maintaining the company’s
software and hardware architecture, including the systems and processes users need to work with
that data.

2. Data Architect

Median Salary: $137,000

These professionals design the structure of complex data frameworks and build and maintain
these databases. Data architects develop strategies for each subject area of the enterprise data
model and communicate plans, status, and issues to their company’s executives.

3. Data Modeler

Median Salary: $130,800

These professionals turn large volumes of data into insights, such as micro and macro trends,
which are gathered into business reports. Data modelers must be skilled in both information
science and statistical analysis and should have proficient programming skills.

Data modelers often specialize in a particular business area, making it easier to find useful data
trends for their employers.

4. Data Scientist

Median Salary: $122,100

Data scientists design and construct new processes for modeling, data mining, and production. In
addition to conducting data studies and product experiments, these professionals are tasked with
developing prototypes, algorithms, predictive models, and custom analyses.

Previous work experience in a similar position is usually required, and data scientists should be
skilled in different data mining techniques, such as clustering, regression analysis, and decision
trees.
5. Database Developer

Median Salary: $109,300

Database developers are responsible for analyzing current database processes in order to
modernize, streamline, or eliminate inefficient coding. These professionals are often charged
with monitoring database performance, developing new databases, and troubleshooting issues as
they arise.

Database developers work closely with other members of the development team. They’re often
required to have prior experience with database development, data analysis, and unit testing.

6. Database Manager

Median Salary: $106,400

Database managers identify problems that occur in databases, take corrective action to remedy
those issues, and assist with the design and physical implementation of storage hardware and
maintenance. They are also responsible for storing and analyzing their organization’s data.

These professionals work closely with database developers and often provide guidance and
training to lower-level staff.

7. Database Administrator

Median Salary: $105,300

These professionals are responsible for monitoring and optimizing database performance to
avoid damaging effects caused by constant access and high traffic. They also coordinate with IT
security professionals to ensure data security. Database administrators typically have prior
experience working on database administration teams.

8. Data Security Analyst

Median Salary: $97,500

Data security analysts perform security audits, risk assessments, and analyses to help make
recommendations for enhancing data systems security. They often research attempted breaches
of data security and formulate security policies and procedures to rectify security weaknesses.

9. Business Intelligence Analyst

Median Salary: $97,500

Business intelligence analysts turn companies’ data into insights that executives can use to make
better business decisions. These professionals often respond to management’s requests for
specific information but might also scrutinize data independently to find patterns and trends.

Business intelligence analysts should have a strong background in analytical and reporting tools,
several years of experience with database queries and stored procedure writing, as well as online
analytical processing (OLAP) and data cube technology skills.

10. Data Analyst

Median Salary: $92,900

Data analysts work with large volumes of data, turning them into insights businesses can
leverage to make better decisions. They work across a variety of industries—from healthcare and
finance to retail and technology.

Data analysts work to improve their own systems to make relaying future insights easier. The
goal is to develop methods to analyze large data sets that can be easily reproduced and scaled.

How To Start A Career in Big Data

Big data is a fast-growing field with exciting opportunities for professionals in all industries and
across the globe. With the demand for skilled big data professionals continuing to rise, now is a
great time to enter the job market.

If you think that a career in big data is right for you, there are a number of steps you can take to
prepare and position yourself to land one of the sought-after titles above. Perhaps most
importantly, you should consider the skills and experience you’ll need to impress future
employers.
The highly technical nature of skills needed for big data careers often requires advanced training
and hands-on learning experience. Seeking a graduate education in your area of study can be one
of the best ways to develop this expertise and demonstrate your knowledge to future employers.
Northeastern’s MS in Data Science and MS in Business Analytics programs, for example, are
designed to equip students with strong analytical and technical skill sets, as well as allow them to
build relationships with industry leaders and peers in the field.

Switching Careers Into Big Data

Even if your background is in a completely unrelated field, it’s still possible to make the switch
to big data and change the trajectory of your career. If you’ve been pondering whether you
should change careers, start looking at the transferable skills that you might already possess and
the required skills that you’ve yet to develop.

To close this gap and sharpen your big data skills, you may want to look into an advanced degree
program such as Northeastern University’s Align Data Science program. This program is
designed specifically for students with an undergraduate degree in an unrelated field and
provides the foundational knowledge and experience necessary to begin a career in big data.
Alternatively, Northeastern also offers a Data Analytics Engineering program as well as
an accelerated alternative for students who are looking to acquire rigorous analytical skills and
research experience in preparation for a doctoral program in health, security, and sustainability.

Download the free guide below to learn how you can break into the fast-paced and exciting field
of analytics.

Top 10 In-Demand Big Data Skills To Land ‘Big’ Data Jobs in 2023
Big Data has become the buzzword today in the world of technology. All top business strategic
decisions are taken based on Big Data and Data Sciences technologies. This has contributed to
increasing demand for Big Data engineers in India and is expected to soar up in the coming
years.
There has been tremendous growth in the tools and techniques around Big Data and other related
fields. Big Data has become the answer to using and analysing real-time data. In today’s
competitive business work, no company can survive without Big Data.
Top Big Data Skills
1. Analytical Skills
Analytical skills are one of the most prominent Big Data Skills required to become the right
expert in Big Data. To Understand the complex data, One should have useful mathematics and
specific science skills in Big Data. Analytics tools in Big Data can help one to learn the
analytical skills required to solve the problem in Big Data.
2. Data Visualization Skills
An individual who wants to become a Big Data professional should work on their Data
Visualization Skills. Data has to be adequately presented to convey the specific message. This
makes visualization skills are essential in this area.
One can start by learning the Data Visualization options in the Big Data Tools and software to
improve their Data Visualization skills. It will also help them to increase their imagination and
creativity, which is a handy skill in the Big Data field. The ability to interpret the data visually is
a must for data professionals.
3. Familiarity with Business Domain and Big Data Tools
Insights from massive datasets are derived and analyzed by using Big data tools. To understand
the data in a better way by Big Data professionals, they will need to become more familiar with
the business domain, especially with the business domain of the data they are working on.
4. Skills of Programming
Having knowledge and expertise in Scala, C, Python, Java and many more programming
languages are added advantages to Big Data Professional. There is a high demand for
programmers who are experienced in Data analytics.
To become an excellent Big Data Professional, one should also have good knowledge of
fundamentals of Algorithms, Data Structures and Object-Oriented Languages. In Big Data
Market, a professional should be able to conduct and code Quantitative and Statistical Analysis.
One should also have a sound knowledge of mathematics and logical thinking. Big Data
Professional should have familiarity with sorting of data types, algorithms and many more.
Database skills are required to deal with a significantly massive volume of data. One will grow
very far if they have an excellent technical and analytical perspective.
5. Problem Solving Skills
The ability to solve a problem can go a long way in the field of Big Data. Big Data is considered
to be a problem because of its unstructured data in nature. The one who has an interest in solving
problems is the best person to work in this field of Big Data. Their creativity will help them to
come out with a better solution to a problem. Knowledge and skills are only good up to a limit.
Creativity and problem-solving skills are even more essential to become a competent
professional in Big Data.
6. SQL – Structured Query Language
In this era of Big Data, SQL work like a base. Structured Query Language is a data centred
language. It will be beneficial for a programmer while working on Big data technologies such as
NoSQL to know SQL.
7. Skills of Data Mining
Experienced Data mining professionals are in high demand. One should gain skills and
experiences in technologies and tools of data mining to grow in their careers. Professionals
should develop most-sought data mining skills by learning from top data mining tools such as
KNIME, Apache Mahout, Rapid Miner and many more.
8. Familiarity with Technologies
Professionals of Big Data Field should be familiar with a range of technologies and tools that are
used by the Big Data Industry. Big Data tools help in conducting research analysis and to
conclude.
It is always better to work with a maximum number of big data tools and technologies such as
Scala, Hadoop, Linux, MatLab, R, SAS, SQL, Excel, SPSS and many more. There is a higher
demand for professional have excellent skills and knowledge in programming and statistics.
9. Familiarity With Public Cloud and Hybrid Clouds
Most Big Data teams will use a cloud set up to store data and ensure the high availability of
Data. organisations prefer cloud storage as it is cheaper to store large volumes of data when
compared to building an in-house storage infrastructures. Many organizations even have a hybrid
cloud implementation where in data can be stored in-house or on public cloud as per the
requirements and organisation policies.
Some of the public clouds that one must know are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft
Azure, Alibaba Cloud etc. The in-house cloud technologies include OpenStack, Vagrant,
Openshift, Docker, Kubernetes etc.
10. Skills from Hands-on experience
An aspiring Big Data Professional should gain hands-on experience to learn the Big data tools.
One can also go for short-term courses to learn the technology faster. If one has good knowledge
about newer technologies, then it will help them in understanding the data better by using
modern tools. Their interaction with the data will improve give them an edge over the others by
bringing out better results.