Introduction - Big Data: Related Technologies, Challenges and Future Prospects - page 3

Fig. 1.1 Illustrating the continuously increasing big data

not be acquired, stored, and managed by classic database software. This definition
includes two connotations: First, the dataset volumes that conform to the standard
of big data are changing, and may grow over time or with technological advances;
Second, the dataset volumes that conform to the standard of big data in different
applications differ from each other. At present, big data generally range from several
TB to several PB [ 12 ]. From the definition by McKinsey & Company, it can be seen
that the volume of a dataset is not the only criterion for big data. The increasingly
growing data scale and its management that could not be handled by traditional
database technologies are the next two key features.
As a matter of fact, big data has been defined as early as 2001. Doug Laney, an
analyst of META (presently Gartner) defined challenges and opportunities brought