Introduction
There’s a lot of demand for companies and professionals who are experts in big data, because we are generating all kinds of data at greater pace than ever. Not only that, business leadership is increasingly well aware that effective utilization of big data is key to staying competitive.
Given this demand, there are lots of people who want to be experts in big data, and there are those who want to be experts in big data in the future. Given the hype, there’s also a lot of confusion around what exactly is big data expertise and who are the experts in this domain. The goal of this article is to help the readers develop a better understanding of big data.
Challenges in Big Data Analysis
Key problems in big data analysis are :-
1). Processing large volume of data
2). Dealing with unstructured data e.g. textual data
3). Data Quality data Issues e.g. missing data, duplicate data, corrupt data
4). Huge computations involved in accomplishing data analysis
5). Dealing with diverse data sources at fast pace
Developing Big Data Expertise
To develop a better understanding of what exactly is a big data expert, and what kind of knowledge and skills are required, here’s a list of subjects, knowledge areas that are essential for solving big data problems:-
1). Databases
2). Data Mining
3). Statistics
4). Machine Learning
5). Artificial Intelligence
6). Neural Networks
7). Natural Language Processing
8). Programming Languages including Matlab, R, Python
9). Cloud Technologies eg. Amazon, Google
10). Data Analysis
11). Knowledge of Structured and Unstructured Data
12). Algorithms for Processing Big Data e.g. Map-Reduce
13). Data Warehousing
14). Software Architecture
Given the above list, it is useful to have a computer science major if you want to be a big data expert. Aspiring big data experts should be taking courses like databases, advanced databases, data mining, AI, and data warehousing in their bachelors and then learning advanced technologies in their masters or their professional careers.
Key Applications of the Big Data
Some of the areas and business problems where big data is applied include:-
1). Advertising
a). Affiliate Marketing
b). Analysis of Reviews for hotels
c). Clickstream Analysis
2). Finance
3). Weather
4). Health Sciences
Big data experts are trying to answers tough questions like :-
1). Which products are being bought by which segments, and why ?
2). What is going to be the trend next month ?
3). Which locations will be visited by different customer segments ?
4). What are the biggest improvements/needs of the customers that can be met by a business ?
5). Which candidates will be voted and what are the issues closest to the heart of the potential voters ?
6). Detecting loss/theft/movement of stock in stores ?
7). Predicting stock requirements across a store chain ?
Big Data Experts
Companies will be looking for different kinds of people to work on big data problems :-
1). ETL Experts
2). Data Warehouse Experts
3). Database Administrators, or database experts
4). Cloud architects
5). Support people specializing in cloud technologies and infrastructure management
6). Software Architects
7). Data Scientists
8). Software Developers with background in AI, Data Mining, Machine Learning etc
Most people who want to work in business intelligence domain on big data projects will work in one of the above roles. Leadership required to manage big data project on technical side, will be required to have broad knowledge of most of the above domains.