The Future of Big Data
Big data are data sets that are too large and complex thus, cannot be processed by traditional data processing and data management applications.
Simply put, big data refers to the processes involved in gathering, processing and analyzing large amounts of digital information to produce business intelligence.
Although big data sets are quite difficult to manage and analyze by traditional methods, the development of wireless connectivity, internet 2.0, and other technologies have made analysis of massive data sets easier.
Although the concept of big data has been around since World War II, the word made its first appearance in English dictionaries during the last past decades. However, big data became more popular as mobile technology and the Internet of Things began to emerge. This was because, with the appearance of mobile technology and the Internet of Things, more and more data was produced from smart devices. These data trace their sources to applications on smartphones like; game apps, fitness apps and retail store apps. Big data were also generated from web browser histories, social media activity and geo-location services.
The world is powered by big data now, the world continues to see an increase in big data sets. This has caused businesses to seek out experts capable of harnessing complex data processing. Including the cloud as a means to store, manage, and analyze their big data.
Big data has taken over the world; every person in the world currently creates more than 7 MBs of data every second. Data production is not slowing down and this makes us wonder how this mass production of data may affect the world.
The Future of Big Data
Reduced Cost
Big data provides business owners the opportunity to earn lots of money. Companies and industries in almost every part of the world use big data to break new grounds. Shipping companies rely on big data to calculate the interval needed for a shipment to be delivered once it has been picked up from the point of departure and also set rates. Big data has slowly become the backbone of “groundbreaking” scientific and medical research, bringing the ability to analyze and study to a rate that was never thought possible, with less costs.
Machine Learning is the next big thing
Machine learning is one of the biggest technological trends in our world today. As a rapidly developing technology, it has been used to increase everyday operations and business processes. Machine learning projects received the most funding in 2019 in comparison to all other AI systems combined. In the future, machine learning will be the next big thing in big data. Experts believe that due to more advanced unsupervised algorithms, deeper personalization and also cognitive services, computers’ ability to learn from data will improve considerably. Ovum reports that Machine learning will be at the forefront of the big data revolution. This will help businesses to prepare data and conduct predictive analysis. Thereby giving businesses an ability to overcome future challenges easily.
New Business/Employment Positions will be open
According to Forrester, businesses will soon begin to appoint chief data officers (CDO). The CDO is a C-level executive responsible for data availability, integrity and security within a company. Although this position is relatively new, the need for data specialists on the labor market is on the rise and would continue to be in high demand in accordance with the increase in data volumes. Thankfully more businesses have reached the realization of the importance of the role of a CDO. Business owners have slowly made hiring a CDO the norm. According to the Big Data and AI Executive Survey 2019 by New Vantage Partners, 67.9% of major companies already have a CDO in place. However, the appointment of chief data officer will greatly depend on the type of business and its data needs.
Data Scientists Will Be in High Demand
Big data is useless if one is not able to analyze it. Data scientists are professionals trained to collect and analyze data with the help of analytics and reporting tools. They also turn big data into useful perceptions. No wonder data science is among the top fastest-growing fields today, alongside machine learning engineering and big data engineering. As the volume of data continues to grow, the demand for data scientists, analysts and data management experts becomes more pressing. As the gap between the demand for data professionals and their availability widens, there would be a need to fill the gap with future ready data experts. You might consider choosing a career path in data sciences, they might not be in the highest demand now but be sure in the future they would be since data production is not slowing down. The high demand for data scientists will also draw a raise in their salaries.
Big Data Technologies Will see many Investments
Although business investments in big data will vary across industries and companies, one thing will remain constant; the increase in big data spending. Experts say that companies involved in Manufacturing of goods would most likely spend the most on big data technology. While health care, banking, and resource industries would be the first to adopt big data technologies. According to IDC analysts, “Total revenues from big data and business analytics will rise from $122 billion in 2015 to $187 billion in 2019”.
Developers will be part of the revolution in big data
Statistics shows that 33% of developers in the world; which sums up to about 6 million developers are currently working with big data and using advanced analytics. We trust that the number would increase over the years as big data continues to grow. As businesses strive to improve their operations and gain a competitive edge, they are more willing to pay higher salaries to developers for the creation of applications that can analyze big data without stress. This makes the future look considerably brighter for developers.
Big data will migrate to the cloud
Reports from big data experts show that the amount of data generation will grow to a high degree in the future. In fact, IDC forecasts the global data-sphere will reach 175 zettabytes by 2025; in its 2025 data age projections for an American data storage company, Seagate. Such large datasets are quite difficult to work with; as regards their storage and processing. However, for the longest time, big data processing challenges have been solved by open-source ecosystems like; Hadoop and NoSQL. However, open source technologies require manual configuration and troubleshooting. This has been much more complicated for most companies and businesses. But for its elasticity, businesses have begun storing big data in the cloud. Thankfully, cloud platforms like; AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google have transformed the way big data is stored and processed for the greater good. The cloud platform provides agility, scalability, and is user friendly. Its pay-as-you-go services allow companies to run data-intensive apps easily unlike when they needed to physically grow their own data centers in the past.
Big data will continue to be of great value in our world. It would give rise to the availability of new job opportunities as businesses seek out experts capable of harnessing complex data processing. More importantly, increasing the earnings of already available employment positions in data analysis would lead to a higher rate of consumer spending. This would affect the economy of a nation as it will lead to a healthier overall local economy and thus, create room for more businesses to thrive.