Big Data Analytics: What It Is, How It Works, Benefits, And

Challenges
Each day, your customers generate an abundance of data. Every time they open your email,
use your mobile app, tag you on social media, walk into your store, make an online purchase,
talk to a customer service representative, or ask a virtual assistant about you, those
technologies collect and process that data for your organization. And that’s just your customers.
Each day, employees, supply chains, marketing efforts, finance teams, and more generate an
abundance of data, too. Big data is an extremely large volume of data and datasets that come in
diverse forms and from multiple sources. Many organizations have recognized the advantages
of collecting as much data as possible. But it’s not enough just to collect and store big data—
you also have to put it to use. Thanks to rapidly growing technology, organizations can use big
data analytics to transform terabytes of data into actionable insights.

What is big data analytics?

Big data analytics describes the process of uncovering trends, patterns, and correlations in
large amounts of raw data to help make data-informed decisions. These processes use familiar
statistical analysis techniques—like clustering and regression—and apply them to more
extensive datasets with the help of newer tools. Big data has been a buzz word since the early
2000s, when software and hardware capabilities made it possible for organizations to handle
large amounts of unstructured data. Since then, new technologies—from Amazon to
smartphones—have contributed even more to the substantial amounts of data available to
organizations. With the explosion of data, early innovation projects like Hadoop, Spark, and
NoSQL databases were created for the storage and processing of big data. This field continues
to evolve as data engineers look for ways to integrate the vast amounts of complex information
created by sensors, networks, transactions, smart devices, web usage, and more. Even now,
big data analytics methods are being used with emerging technologies, like machine learning, to
discover and scale more complex insights.
How big data analytics works

Big data analytics refers to collecting, processing, cleaning, and analyzing large
datasets to help organizations operationalize their big data.

1. Collect Data

Data collection looks different for every organization. With today’s technology,
organizations can gather both structured and unstructured data from a variety of
sources — from cloud storage to mobile applications to in-store IoT sensors and
beyond. Some data will be stored in data warehouses where business intelligence tools
and solutions can access it easily. Raw or unstructured data that is too diverse or
complex for a warehouse may be assigned metadata and stored in a data lake.

2. Process Data

Once data is collected and stored, it must be organized properly to get accurate results
on analytical queries, especially when it’s large and unstructured. Available data is
growing exponentially, making data processing a challenge for organizations. One
processing option is batch processing, which looks at large data blocks over time.
Batch processing is useful when there is a longer turnaround time between collecting
and analyzing data. Stream processing looks at small batches of data at once,
shortening the delay time between collection and analysis for quicker decision-making.
Stream processing is more complex and often more expensive.
3. Clean Data

Data big or small requires scrubbing to improve data quality and get stronger results; all
data must be formatted correctly, and any duplicative or irrelevant data must be
eliminated or accounted for. Dirty data can obscure and mislead, creating flawed
insights.

Imagine having to assess a pile of rocks that included some gold pieces in it. You would
have to clean the dirt and the debris first. When data is being cleaned, mistakes must
be fixed, duplicates must be removed and the data must be formatted properly.

4. Analyze Data

Getting big data into a usable state takes time. Once it’s ready, advanced analytics
processes can turn big data into big insights. Some of these big data analysis methods
include:

• Data mining sorts through large datasets to identify patterns and relationships
by identifying anomalies and creating data clusters.
 • Predictive analytics uses an organization’s historical data to make predictions
about the future, identifying upcoming risks and opportunities.

• Deep learning imitates human learning patterns by using artificial intelligence

and machine learning to layer algorithms and find patterns in the most complex
and abstract data.

Big data analytics tools and technology

Big data analytics cannot be narrowed down to a single tool or technology. Instead, several
types of tools work together to help you collect, process, cleanse, and analyze big data. Some
of the major players in big data ecosystems are listed below.

• Hadoop is an open-source framework that efficiently stores and processes big datasets
on clusters of commodity hardware. This framework is free and can handle large
amounts of structured and unstructured data, making it a valuable mainstay for any big
data operation.

• NoSQL databases are non-relational data management systems that do not require a
fixed scheme, making them a great option for big, raw, unstructured data. NoSQL stands
for “not only SQL,” and these databases can handle a variety of data models.

• MapReduce is an essential component to the Hadoop framework serving two functions.

The first is mapping, which filters data to various nodes within the cluster. The second is
reducing, which organizes and reduces the results from each node to answer a query.

• YARN stands for “Yet Another Resource Negotiator.” It is another component of second-
generation Hadoop. The cluster management technology helps with job scheduling and
resource management in the cluster.

• Spark is an open-source cluster computing framework that uses implicit data parallelism
and fault tolerance to provide an interface for programming entire clusters. Spark can
handle both batch and stream processing for fast computation.

• Tableau is an end-to-end data analytics platform that allows you to prep, analyze,
collaborate, and share your big data insights. Tableau excels in self-service visual
analysis, allowing people to ask new questions of governed big data and easily share
those insights across the organization.