For many years, companies collected data from various sources that often found its way into relational databases like Oracle and MySQL. However, the rise of the Internet, Web 2.0, and recently social media began an enormous increase in the amount of data created as well as in the type of data. No longer was data relegated to types that easily fit into standard data fields. Instead, it now came in the form of photos, geographic information, chats, Twitter feeds, and emails. The age of Big Data is upon us.
\nA study by IDC titled \u201cThe Digital Universe Decade\u201d projects a 45-fold increase in annual data by 2020. In 2010, the amount of digital information was 1.2 zettabytes (1 zettabyte equals 1 trillion gigabytes). To put that in perspective, the equivalent of 1.2 zettabytes is a full-length episode of \u201c24\u201d running continuously for 125 million years, according to IDC. That\u2019s a lot of data. More important, this data has to go somewhere, and IDC\u2019s report projects that by 2020, more than one-third of all digital information created annually will either live in or pass through the cloud. With all this data being created, the challenge will be how to collect, store, and analyze what it means. <\/p>\n