Big data is everywhere you look. From consumer trends and personalized marketing efforts to wearable tools for healthcare, big data is supplying the information companies need to make the best decisions. Big data is vast and often overwhelming, so let’s take a look at big data, its challenges, and some solutions.
What Is “Big Data”?
Big data refers to large and ever-growing sets of data and all the technologies, tools, and infrastructures that manage all that data. Big data stretches across industries and helps businesses to make the best decisions possible. What you can do with big data is vast and varied. It’s used in political campaigns, price setting, retail predictions, tracking infectious diseases, weather predictions, and so much more. It can be broken down into three characteristics, often referred to as the three Vs: volume, velocity, and variability.
Volume
Volume refers to the physical size and space the data takes up. To qualify as “big” data, you must generate over 150 GB of data each and every day. It seems like a lot, but it adds up fast!
Velocity
With such high quantities of data received daily, you need fast and regular updates. Velocity is the real time processing of all the incoming data.
Variability
A lot of the incoming data can be easily structured and stored in real-time. However, one of the common big data challenges is the variety of information received. Some data may need further processing to be structured properly.
Top 7 Challenges with Big Data
Processing big data has been a challenge for centuries and has evolved with industry needs. From early physical storage systems to the modern cloud, data scientists have developed technologies to best store and utilize big data. But how do you tackle such a daunting task? Many traditional data-processing applications do not have the ability to handle such large and varied data sets which lead to false results and insights.
Data tools have been developed to meet the needs of big data such as enhanced security measures, scalability, and system integration. Choosing the right tools for big data is the first step to leveraging key information.
Today, big data is used as predictive analytics, behavior analysis, and other specialized purposes. While big data has great potential, there are also many challenges of big data that can set your project back or cause it to fail entirely.
Lack of Understanding of Big Data
Big data is quite complex and oftentimes companies fail to understand the basics. It is very difficult to tackle and utilize big data without understanding the basics of what big data is, the benefits, data processing, storage, and data analytics.
Data comes in from many angles. However, if one of those points of entry was blocked, it would skew the set. Imagine one of your employees does not understand why they ought to store and backup the analytics of a recent project. A few months later when the team decides to revisit the project and make new changes, analytic data is missing, which causes leadership to make decisions based on bad data.
It is not enough for your IT team to understand big data. You have to invest time to teach your entire team the basics of big data and how they contribute to it.
SOLUTIONS
Consider hosting a big data initiative. Have your IT department organize a training or workshop with practical examples for your business to encourage management and employees alike to contribute to and implement big data solutions.
Throw in some practical examples for your own company or industry to help demonstrate the benefits of data analytics.
Overwhelming Variety of Big Data Technologies
As confusing as it can be to sift through massive amounts of data, it is also overwhelming to select which big data tools are right for you. You’ll want to start with a clear understanding of big data and what you need it to do for you and your business first.
SOLUTION
If you are fairly new to big data, it may be worth hiring an experienced professional to help you determine which tool is right for you to avoid wasting time, money, and energy. You can either hire a vendor from a consulting firm or outside data professionals to help you create a big data strategy and select which software would best meet your company’s needs.
Massive Security Weak Spots
Data security is one of the most pressing challenges of big data. It’s easy to get caught up in the process of understanding, educating, and implementing big data plans and forget to consider what big data security tools you will use to ensure your data stays safe.
SOLUTIONS
Begin thinking about security from the onset of your big data projects. Waiting until later stages can be costly and wreak havoc for your business. Keep security in mind from the beginning as you select, design, and implement your big data analytics tools. We recommend consulting with a professional about proper security measures because it is a complex and critical feature of your software.
Additional security measures never hurt. After all, two-factor authentication is annoying for a reason. Consider methods of data encryption, segregation, and access control to help ensure your sensitive data stays safe.
Converting Data to Useful Insights
Collecting data is great, but it is only as great as what you do with it. How do you take all that data and do something useful with it? The healthcare industry is currently using big data analytics to help fight the opioid crisis by analyzing insurance and pharmaceutical data to identify at-risk patients and cases.
SOLUTION
You have to start by understanding what you are trying to accomplish. Are you trying to increase product sales, predict behavior, or identify future patterns? Once you understand what you need the data to tell you, establish the proper system of factors and input the right data sources. You will begin to see the right insights and catch all the details you need.
Rapid Data Growth Issues
Scalability is a buzzword for a reason. Your data will grow, and it will grow fast. You need to be prepared to scale accordingly or you will be left with an inefficient system and nothing to do with all the data.
Upscaling should be a key factor when you are deciding which tool to use. Make sure that you can properly store the massive amounts of data you accumulate in an effective database. Keep in mind that the process can be tedious because not all data is structured. Unstructured data such as information from documents, images, audio, and other sources can be detrimental to your data management.
SOLUTION
Choose a data storage system that allows you to scale without any performance declines or budget hikes. Your data will grow drastically but that doesn’t mean your budget will grow with it. Keep upscaling in mind when designing your algorithms to ensure your solution stays efficient and usable as your data grows.
Also consider how you plan to maintain your data. Most companies choose to use techniques such as compression, tiering, and de-duplication to manage their data storage. Data management should be a routine part of your operations to keep everything tidy and usable. Frequent maintenance also helps you to take notes of any weak spots or issues you may have in your system and address them quickly.
Integrating Data from Multiple Sources
One of the most overlooked big data challenges is data integration from multiple sources. You will get data from a widespread of sources such as financial reports, presentations, websites, and customer logs. You will need to combine all the data and organize reports to determine what exactly you will do with all the data.
SOLUTION
Data integration is a common issue with big data management. However, there are several tools to help you with data integration and data management. Consider software like ArcESB, IBM InfoSphere, and Microsoft SQL QlikView to help with your data integration.
Lack of Skilled Professionals
Running all these big data projects is no easy task. You will need skilled data professionals and data engineers to help run these technologies and properly utilize these big data systems. However, it can be difficult and expensive to find the right people for the job because of the rapid changes in this field.
SOLUTION
If you plan to rely on big data, you’ll also need big data professionals to rely on. It may be worth it for you to spend the time and money recruiting a chief data officer who can help to oversee and train your data analysts.
Consider finding software to support your IT and analytics team. There are plenty of knowledge analytics solutions out there that leverage artificial intelligence to fill in any gaps in your IT team.
Best Big Data Advice for Companies to Thrive
It is easy to be overwhelmed by big data challenges, but there are a few best practices of big data to help your business thrive.
First, define your goals. Software is only as good as its requirements and the same goes for big data. The data quality depends entirely on understanding what you are trying to achieve as a business with the insight.
Next, use cross-departmental collaboration. IT should not lead the charge alone when it comes to big data. Each person who contributes to and gains from your big data should understand the goals and requirements. Clear communication across departments also results in better data analytics and reduces data silos which can cripple your company.
Finally, start with manageable goals and react quickly to the data. Be mindful not to bite off more than you can chew and ensure you prove success with your project. Be ready to react when you do analyze data to leverage the results.
How Geneca Helps with These Challenges
Big data can be difficult to approach. At Geneca, we use a unique approach to agile development to best leverage big data. We work with you to create a roadmap and ensure the right stakeholders are all a part of the conversation. As we go through the software development life cycle, we update our clients with real-time updates, so you are always given clear and consistent information.
Our skilled data professionals are able to react to data in real time and are knowledgeable in the tools and methodologies available to help you get the most out of your data. We understand the power of data and how to translate it into tangible, actionable insights.
If you are ready to start using big data to help your business grow, give us a call. We would love to work with you to turn data into actionable insights that help grow your business. We will work with you to collect, understand, translate, and utilize your data insights to drive growth and profit.