Big data is the most fashionable buzzword in business circles these days. Businesses advertise that their products are powered by big data. Business leaders and top executives keep talking about big data. Job applicants put the word ‘big data’ on their resume. To put things in perspective, big data is to the business world what ripped jeans is to teenagers.
However, big data is not just a passing trend. It is an important part of business operations, sales, marketing, business management and every aspect of business.
Read on to find out what is big data, and what a big data course is all about. You will realise why you should enroll for one.
What is Big Data?
On a day-to-day basis, as different functions take place in a business, data gets generated. For example, if you look at an app, data would be generated around how many times each button on an app was clicked, how many times it led to another button getting clicked, which button got clicked, what happened after that, and so on and so forth. Over a period of time data piles up into large volumes, and such large volumes of data is called big data.
Big data is characterised by volume, velocity and variety. That is to say, large volumes of data get generated at a high speed as various functions take place through the day. Apart from volume and velocity, big data also comes in all shapes and sizes, and it can be either structured or unstructured.
Big data helps us find out the root cause of problems, or automate solutions and functions. For example, an automated program can sort which employee should be given the “Employee of the Month” award based on their performance data from project management tools and attendance or punctuality data from automated tools.
It is not possible to manage big data manually because of the volume, velocity and variety. There are tools to tame big data and make it manageable for further computing such as preparing automated charts and graphs for the end user stakeholders, or other as the case may be.
What Is A Big Data Course All About?
All industries use big data – from agriculture, banking, ecommerce to health, hotel, travel and so on.
It makes for a great career development initiative to enroll for a big data course.
There are popular online and offline centers where you can consider signing up for a big data course whose curriculum is set to industry requirements and best practices. Read on to find out what exactly you will learn, or more importantly what you should be learning in a big data course.
Here is what you should be looking for in an ideal big data course. You can check to course details mentioned on their website to make sure you are getting all of these.
- The course may normally start with a module to help you understand what big data is.
- Next, you may be made aware of traditional solutions and their limitations.
- Thereon, you would be introduced to Hadoop as a solution for big data problems.
- Subsequently, you will learn about Hadoop Ecosystem tools such as HDFS, YARN, MapReduce, Hive, and Pig.
- Apart from theoretical exposure to all the fundamentals, concepts and tools, you may also get the opportunity to work on real world projects from various verticals such as banking, retail, social media, insurance, etc., so you get hands-on experience at working with big data and Hadoop.
By the end of the course, you would have in-depth knowledge of Big Data, Hadoop and Hadoop Ecosystem tools. After rigorous training under the guidance of big data and Hadoop experts who are in touch with real-world projects in the industry, you would be able to apply the learning to your work, if you are already employed. If you are just getting started in the job market, then it will be that much easier for you to get selected at interviews if you have completed a big data course.
Software engineers, project managers, testing and QA professionals, graduates, post graduates, data scientists, or whoever is looking to pursue a career in big data related jobs can take up a big data course. There is a demand for professionals who are skilled at big data and Hadoop, as more and more organizations are harnessing the power of big data and are looking for better ways to store and manage big data.
