Here Are 15 'Big Data' Facts Every IT Professional Should Know!

Big data is certainly the talk of the town lately! It is one of the fast growing technologies that can help you get jobs with the tech biggies. More and more firms now believe that big data will help businesses make better decisions in the days to come (some believe it's already started). However, there is dearth of right skills in the market.

As such, IT professionals should keep track of big data trends, research and statistics!

1. How Much Data is There?

-According to IBM, a whopping 2.5 quintillion bytes of data is created every day!

2. Structured Versus Unstructured Data

-According to Tata Consultancy Services Limited (TCS): 51 per cent of data is structured, 27 per cent is unstructured while 21 per cent is semi-structured.

3. Big Data Generates Jobs

-According to Gartner, as much as 4.4 million IT jobs will be created globally to support big data by 2015. The technology will generate 1.9 million IT jobs in the US alone.

4. The Big Data Talent Shortage

-According to McKinsey Global Institute, the US alone could face a talent shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 people by 2018. Further, it could face a shortage of 1.5 million managers and analysts to make effective decisions on big data.

5. Rethinking Job Roles and Titles

-According to TEK Systems, nearly 81 percent of IT leaders and 77 percent of IT professionals believe there is a considerable shortage of talent that could make best use of their organisation's data assets.

6. Disparate Systems

-According to TEK Systems, 66 per cent of IT leaders and 53 per cent of IT professionals believe their organisations need to build new platforms to make use of their mammoth data management needs, thereby getting rid of current disparate systems.

7. Getting Business Value From Big Data

-Tata Consultancy Services Limited has highlighted three prominent challenges for companies: making businesses share information across organisational lines; dealing with the three V's of big data (data volume, velocity and variety). Meanwhile, third on the list is determining which data could be best used under different conditions.

8. Data Quality

-According to TEK Systems, 57 per cent of IT leaders and 52 per cent of IT professionals claim they don't always know who owns the data, meaning quality more or less lies on the back burner. Ensuring the accuracy and quality of the data will be critical in the times to come in an ever expanding universe of big data.

9. Create a Stronger Business

-According to CompTIA nearly eight in 10 data executives believe that harnessing all of their enterprise data would result in a stronger business.

10. Better Manage Data

-According to CompTIA less than 1 in 5 businesses report being currently stable in managing and using data.

11. Top 3 Big Data Business Drivers

-According to EMA and 9sight Consulting, the top three big data business drivers include:

1. Speeding time for operational or analytical workloads (39 per cent)

2. Increasing competitive advantage with flexibility of data used in business solutions (34 per cent)

3. Business requirements for higher levels of advanced analytics (31 per cent)

12. Big Data Implementations

-According to EMA and 9sight Consulting, big data implementations in production rose from 27 per cent in 2012 to 34.3 per cent in 2013.

13. Big Data Tools

-According to Giga Spaces, nearly 80 per cent people in IT are either using or planning to use dedicated big data tools to manage massive amounts of data in their organisation.

14. Big Data Spending

-According to Tata Consultancy Services Limited, nearly 15 per cent of the companies surveyed had spent at least $100 million each on big data in 2012, while 7 per cent had invested at least $500 million.

15. Industries Spending the Most on Big Data

-According to Tata Consultancy Services Limited travel-related, high tech, and banking industries have been the biggest spenders, while industries related to life sciences, retail, and energy have spent the least.