INTRODUCTION

Is there an “authority” on the exact meaning of “Big Data” and its solutions?

To answer this question, we need to define the exact meaning of big data and who owns these data to find whether there is an authority. In addition, who can create big data solutions? The big data solution is software and hardware that can store, process, and analyze these data. The big data solution is software and hardware that can store, process, and analyze these data. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), “Big Data refers to the need to parallelize the data handling in data-intensive applications” (2019). They also state big data characteristics: large size, high flow rate, multiple sources, and multiple types (Chang & Grady, 2019).

Big data can be generated everywhere around us, starting from our phones, smartwatches, and surveillance cameras to the satellites in space. Also, big data cannot be handled in traditional ways such as DBMS or personal computers due to the limited capabilities. The solutions that come from big technology companies such as Amazon, IBM, Google, and others, including creating software and hardware that can handle multiple data types and data storage to provide the ability to store, process, and analyze these data. These days, any organization with the right resources to create big data can collect the data with no big issues. It needs expertise with big data and the ability to use big data solutions and has the approval to collect the data. In addition, using big data solutions now are much easier than before. Technology companies offer big data solutions online with technical support, and the users can customize the service as they need.

From the previous, we can conclude that there is no authority on big data. It is a term to store a high volume, complex data into a high hardware capability to store, process, and analyze these data. Also, there is no authority about who can collect the big data. In addition, there is no authority to create a big data solution.

In general, there is no authority on big data and its solution. Anyone with the proper pieces of equipment and software can generate big data. Also, there are tens of big data solutions online, which means that if a company can create its big data solution, it has the authority over those solutions. The capability includes knowledge, expertise, devices, and budget.

Many technology companies offer big data solutions in the market, for example, Google, Oracle, Microsoft, and Amazon. Some of these companies have a definition of what big data is. All these companies have multiple big data solutions that can be used in different sectors. The following paragraphs show three definitions from different companies (Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM) with descriptions and critiques of the definition. In addition, the student will compare the definition with the NIST definition to find the similarities and differences between both definitions.

ORACLE BIG DATA DEFINITION

Since Oracle is one of the big technology companies in the United States of America that provides database solutions, they offer a big data solution, “Oracle Big Data Service.” Oracle provides solutions for many sectors with big data and needs solutions, such as banking, healthcare, life sciences, and manufacturing. For example, in the banking sector, they have Cloud Infrastructure for Financial Services, which provides services for the banking sector in terms of big data. According to the Oracle website, “Big data is data that contains greater variety, arriving in increasing volumes and with more velocity. This is also known as the three Vs. Put simply, and big data is larger, more complex data sets, especially from new data sources. These data sets are so voluminous that traditional data processing software just cannot manage them.” (2021). This definition shows the big data characteristics directly with no specific or unique definition. Oracle says that big data is a greater variety that includes multiple data types (structured and unstructured) and comes with high volumes and velocity. Then they explain more by saying that big data is larger and more complex and comes from different sources. The last part of their definition was special when they mentioned that big data could not be managed by traditional software. They almost say as the NIST mentioned in their definition, that big data is complex and needs specific software to work with big data. However, Oracle took the big data characteristics and included them in the definition.

MICROSOFT BIG DATA DEFINITION

Microsoft is a big technology company that offers many software and solutions. Also, Microsoft offers Azure as a big data solution in terms of big data. The big data definition comes from Microsoft in a post initialled “The Big Bang: How the Big Data Explosion Is Changing the World, “published in 2013 “Big data is the term increasingly used to describe the process of applying serious computing power – the latest in machine learning and artificial intelligence –to seriously massive and often highly complex sets of information.” (Microsoft, 2013). Microsoft’s description of big data is that data requires high computing capabilities to handle massive and complex data to apply advanced technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence. Microsoft, in their definition, focuses on the data volume and complexity, but they ignore important big data features such as high velocity, variety, and variability. In addition, they mentioned AI and ML as key elements in big data, while this is not always right. The NIST definition is specific and more comprehensive compared to the Microsoft definition.

IBM BIG DATA DEFINITION

Many supercomputers around the world these days are designed by IBM company. As known, supercomputers could be used to handle big data. IBM’s solution for big data applications is “IBM Cloud Pak for Data.” This solution provides multiple futures to enhance big data usage, such as storing the data in distributed stores on the cloud, distributing data process, provide data privacy and security, to name a few (IBM, n.d.). According to the IBM website, “Big data is a term applied to data sets whose size or type is beyond the ability of traditional relational databases to capture, manage and process the data with low latency.” (IBM, 2020). IBM’s definition focuses on three big data characteristics: volume, variety, and velocity. Comparing the IBM definition to the NIST definition, it can be noticed that IBM has almost the same. Also, IBM indicates that the traditional database cannot handle big data. However, they do not take the complexity of data or the multiple sources that data could come from. The complexity and variability are key features of big data and cannot be ignored. Also, they did not indicate that big data need high-performance hardware, which is a major feature that big data must have.

CONCLUSION

To sum up, this paper shows three big data definitions from different companies that provide big data solutions for many commercial sectors. It can be noticed that all definitions mention the data size, which is the obvious problem with big data. However, some definitions ignore some important parts of big data, such as the complexity and others ignore the multiple sources. In my opinion, the best definition was from Oracle because it is the most relevant one to the NIST definition. However, the worst one was for Microsoft because it missed many important big data characteristics and focused on specific parts. I believe this because the definition was old, and I could not find a new definition of big data from Microsoft.