Introduction to big data

As seen in the preceding section, data analytics techniques, tools, and methodologies to explore and analyze data to produce quantifiable outcomes for the business. The outcome could be a simple choice of a color to paint the storefront or more complicated predictions of customer behavior. As businesses grow, more and more varieties of analytics are coming into the picture. In 1980s or 1990s , all we could get was what was available in a SQL Data Warehouse; nowadays a lot of external factors are all playing an important role in influencing the way businesses run.

Note

Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Verizon, Macy's, and Whole Foods are all companies that run their business using data analytics and base many of the decisions on it. Think about what kind of data they are collecting, how much data they might be collecting, and then how they might be using the data.

Let's look at our grocery store example seen earlier. What if the store starts expanding its business to set...