The production and processing of large volumes of data began to be of interest to researchers many years ago. By 1944, estimations for the size of libraries, which increased rapidly every year, were made in American universities. In 1997, at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Conference on Visualization, the term “Big Data” was used for the first time during the presentation of a study about large datasets’ visualization.
Big Data is the buzzword of recent years, that is, a fashionable expression in information systems. The general population relates the term Big Data to its literal meaning of large volumes of data. However, Big Data is a generic term used to refer to large and complex datasets that arise from the combination of famous Big Data V’s that characterize it.
Big Data Characterization
As mentioned before, Big Data does not refer only to high volumes of data to be processed. At the beginning of the Big Data studies, their volume, velocity and variety were considered as fundamental characteristics, which were known as the three Vs of Big Data. After advances in the research, new Vs, such as value and veracity, were established.