or traditional data processing applications. The challenges include capture, curation, storage,[3] search, sharing, transfer, analysis,[4] and visualization. The trend to larger data sets is due to the additional information derivable from analysis of a single large set of related data, as compared to separate smaller sets with the same total amount of data, allowing correlations to be found to "spot business trends, determine quality of research, prevent diseases, link legal citations, combat crime, and determine real-time roadway traffic conditions."[5][6][7]
As of 2012, limits on the size of data sets that are feasible to process in a reasonable amount of time were on the order of exabytes of data.[8][9] Scientists regularly encounter limitations due to large data sets in many areas, including meteorology, genomics,[10] connectomics, complex physics simulations,[11] and biological and environmental research.[12] The limitations also affect Internet search, finance andbusiness informatics. Data sets grow in size in part because they are increasingly being gathered by ubiquitous information-sensing mobile devices, aerial sensory technologies (remote sensing), software logs, cameras, microphones, radio-frequency identification readers, andwireless sensor networks.[13][14] The world's technological per-capita capacity to store information has roughly doubled every 40 months since the 1980s;[15] as of 2012, every day 2.5 quintillion (2.5×1018) bytes of data were created.[16] The challenge for large enterprises is determining who should own big data initiatives that straddle the entire organization.[17]
Big data is difficult to work with using most relational database management systems and desktop statistics and visualization packages, requiring instead "massively parallel software running on tens, hundreds, or even thousands of servers".[18] What is considered "big data" varies depending on the capabilities of the organization managing the set, and on the capabilities of the applications that are traditionally used to process and analyze the data set in its domain. "For some organizations, facing hundreds of gigabytes of data for the first time may trigger a need to reconsider data management options. For others, it may take tens or hundreds of terabytes before data size becomes a significant consideration."[19]