Databases, SQL, and Big Data
Collecting and analyzing data is a major activity, so many tools are available for this purpose. Some of these focus on “big data” (whatever that might mean). Some focus on consistently storing the data quickly. Some on deep analysis. Some have pretty visual interfaces; others are programming languages.
SQL and relational databases are a powerful combination that is useful in any arsenal of tools for analysis, particularly ad hoc analyses:
- A mature and standardized language for accessing data
- Multiple vendors, including open source
- Scalability over a very broad range of hardware
- A non-programming interface for data manipulations
Before continuing with SQL, it is worth looking at SQL in the context of other tools.
What Is Big Data?
Big data is one of those concepts whose definition changes over time. In the 1800s, when statistics was first being invented, researchers worked with dozens or hundreds of rows of data. That might not seem like a...