Big Data VS Data Science - What’s the Difference?
In order to understand the differences, let’s first start with some definitions…
What is BIG Data?
Big data is data that has greater variety, arriving in increasing volumes, and with ever-higher velocity compared to more traditional, smaller data sets - This is typically referred to as the “3 V’s” of big data.
Put simply, big data is larger, more complex data sets, especially from new data sources.
These data sets are so voluminous that traditional data processing software just can’t manage them. But these massive volumes of data can also be used to address business problems you wouldn’t have been able to tackle before, or even knew that you needed to tackle before!
What is Data Science?
Data science combines statistics and data analysis to extract value from data that can’t be so easily understood just by looking at it face on.
Most companies nowadays are sitting on a treasure trove of data, riddled with massive insights into how their business really operates and what makes their customers satisfied. Believe it or not, but it is estimated that 90% of that data in the world was only created in the last 2 years alone - and this trend is only getting bigger as time goes on!
Without data science, organizations tend to miss out on insights that businesses can use to make better decisions and create more innovative products and services.
So, what’s the difference?
As you may have already pieced together, organizations need big data to have the data to back up the reason to improve efficiencies, understand new markets, and enhance competitiveness. Whereas data science provides the methods or mechanisms to understand and utilize the potential of big data in a timely manner.
In this sense, you could say that big data and data science couldn’t exist without one another!
Big data is here to stay in the coming years because according to current data growth trends, new data will be generated at the rate of 1.7 million MB per second according to estimates by Forbes.
This growth of big data will have immense potential and must be managed effectively by organizations.
The area of data science is realizing the potential of big data. Data science is evolving rapidly with new techniques developed continuously which can support data science professionals into the future - such as the software offered by us via our partners Data Robot, and Tangent Works.
