What is Data?
Data is a sequence of bits
with a value of one or zero. The singular of data is datum which represents a symbol. It's the building blocks
of knowledge, waiting to be organized and interpreted. It is basically raw
information, like facts, numbers, or symbols!
Why is Data
important?
The
world we are living in is rich with data. Any platform that has an online
appearance and that accepts posting, logging, commenting, or electronic payments is gathering data. All that
data is filled with potential if you can learn how to find it.
Data
has a big value and is important for business. It is one of the most valuable
assets that an organization has. The number of data insights is growing. It
helps companies to grow.
Governments,
nonprofit organizations, and academic facilities also strive to find insights in
data that can help solve challenges, like poverty, climate change, disease,
inequality, and terrorism.
Problem
Solver
Data
is a problem solver. Analysts extract valuable insights for companies by
processing the data. They follow a process to gather, clean, and transform data
to answer the question, what is the data talking about in a business? The goal
of this process is to use the insights to help make better and more informed
decisions and solve problems.
Data till
Date
From
traffic patterns and music downloads to web histories and medical records, data
is stored, recorded, and analyzed to enable technology and services that the
world needs daily.
According
to the Earthweb, by Jason Wise, the world generates 2.5 quintillion bytes of
data every day. There are billion billions or millions of trillions in one
quintillion.
By
2025, global data creation is projected to grow to more than 180 zettabytes.
Zettabytes is a number 1 followed by 21 zeroes!
Types of Data
Data
might be facts, statistics, opinions, or any kind of content that is recorded
in some format. When data analysts organize data, they divide it into two
forms:
Structured
Data
Structured
data can be organized in rows and columns. If you can organize information
within data into groups, based on specific characteristics, then those groups
or structured data. Examples include names, dates, addresses, stock
information, card numbers, and geolocation.
This form of data is very
useful because of its manipulation and organization.
Unstructured Data
Unstructured data is
everything other than structured data. They have no predefined format. Examples
of unstructured data include images, texts, tweets, comments, medical records,
and even song lyrics.
What is a Database?
A database is a collection of
structured data in a computer system. It is highly organized so that the data
is accessible by queries and computation software.
Most databases are organized
as relational databases. It is a collection of multiple data sets or tables
that link together. For example, one table might show names and addresses,
while the other might show properties.
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