10 things you need to know about data

As our world rapidly becomes digitized, data is  all around us and in the news every day. Along with this growth comes a lexicon of new jargon. Taking a tour through the terabytes and petabytes in and out of the cloud, and investigating cyber criminals is AECOM’s Chief Information Security Officer Emily Heath.

Volumes of data are multiplying at the fastest rate in history. We generate it, process it, store it, consume it, correlate it and trust it to make life and business decisions. The data landscape has changed dramatically during the past decade due to the growing sophistication of technology and it is crucial for business to keep up.

The first rumblings of this explosion began 20 years ago with the launch of the internet which changed our relationship with data forever. Data became available to all, and technological advancement took on a world of its own. The rest, as they say… is history.

Here’s a quick guide to our digital world.

1. When did data get big?

There are many definitions of big data. I like to think of it in its simplest terms, data that is extensive, and therefore complex and difficult to process. As a result of the growing volumes and complexity of data, technology was forced to change how we process and make sense of it. That’s why so-called ‘big data’ has caused a stir. The characteristics of big data are often summed up as the five ‘v’s — volume, variety, velocity, veracity and value.

2. Where did the name come from?

The term ‘big data’ was coined back in 1997 by NASA scientists who were describing the challenges they faced with visualizing huge volumes of data when computer systems did not have enough memory to fit the data on local disks.

3. What do I need to know about the cloud?

Used as a metaphor, the cloud is a place somewhere ‘out there’ where data, computing power and systems are stored. You don’t need to own the hardware because it is an internet-based service which provides on-demand access to computing services and data storage. The first business iteration of the cloud came when tech companies began offering their software as a service (SaaS) business model in the early 2000s.

4. How did the cloud evolve?

Cloud offerings became increasingly sophisticated in areas such as enterprise resource planning (a business management software for integrating applications) and software on demand, which hit the market offering high-volume data consumption, processing capability and reporting functions.

5. Where is all this data coming from?

In addition to the data we create and consume on our computers, tablets and phones, huge volumes of data are being collected continuously through sensors in transportation systems, utility networks and more besides. According to IBM, every day we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data — so much that 90 percent of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone.

6. So how can this help my business?

With quantities of data, remote processing capability and cloud availability, the data movement has been in full swing for some time. Businesses have self-service business intelligence, data visualization and on-demand reporting from any computer, at any time, anywhere in the world. It suits our mobile lifestyles and is a highly efficient way of operating. With all this data on demand we make decisions faster, adding to the speed of business growth.

7. So what is the Internet of Things

By 2014, the advancements in technology had grown big data yet further. Computers, and therefore data, appeared in household appliances and ‘things’ that we use in our everyday lives. We not only had a network of computers that we relied heavily on in almost every part of our connected lives, we also had a network of physical objects that contain embedded technology, which we were teaching to talk to each other — hence the Internet of Things (IoT). Think about your ability to control cameras, thermostats, even cars from mobile apps and devices — those are the ‘things.’ In 2014 Gartner estimated there were 3.7 billion connected ‘things’ in use around the world. That number rose to 4.9 billion by 2015.

8. How do smart cities fit into all this?

Smart cities are inevitable and a logical next step in the evolution of data and how we as a society use the power of data to drive change and efficiencies in the way we live. Think about using real-time information to enhance the quality and performance of services in our community, use energy more efficiently, only lighting streets when they needed to be lit, real-time air pollution monitoring, real-time healthcare where you and your doctor are connected regardless of distance. The potential is endless, exciting and elevates our vision of what’s possible in a more tangible way than ever before. This is because of our access to information from the processing power and the connectedness of the Internet of Things, coupled with the big data our computing resources are starting to process.

9. So is data bursting with opportunities for the construction industry?

Yes, it absolutely is. Data forms a critical component in intelligent design and build. Data leads to understanding our environmental, social and economic challenges and being able to build resilience into everything we do. We can design cities and buildings to consider water supply challenges that enable us to build in drought resilience and build security into our critical infrastructure to predict and anticipate the most likely points of attack or failure, whether that be environmental attacks, physical attacks or cyber attacks. Data is opportunity.

10. Where next with data?

Actually, the next generation of big data has already begun. This new era is focused on optimization — improving data analytics to enhance their use. Many of us are already working with these new tools in creating the cities and the infrastructure systems of the future which will provide us with structures and services that are efficient, effective and more sustainable than anything we know today.