What is big data? Given its name, does one define it simply in terms of size or quantity? If that’s the case, much of the excitement that surrounds it is overblown. History, after all, is teeming with evidence of humans dealing with generous amounts of data. That also means the concept is a dated one, merely resuscitated from relative obscurity. No. Big data goes beyond that though volume remains a major distinguishing mark.The consensus seems to be that it is characterized by the three“Vs”: volume (because of the massive datasets involved), velocity (because of near-real-time accumulation, generation, or processing), and variety (because of the many different sources it is culled from).