Ever wonder what Edge computing is all about? Data happens and information takes work. Estimates are that by 2020, 1.7 megabytes of new data will be created every second for every person in the world. That is a lot of raw data.

Two questions come to mind. What are we going to do with it and where we going to keep it. Big Data is often described by the three Vs – Volume, Velocity, and Variability – and note not all three need apply. What is missing is the letter “U” which stands for Usability. A Data Scientist will first ask, how much of my data is usable? Data usability can take several forms and include things like quality (is it noisy, incomplete, accurate) and pertinence (is there any extraneous information that will not make a difference to my analysis). There is also the issue of timeliness. Is there a “use by” date for the analysis or might the data be needed in the future for some as of yet unknown reason. The usability component is hugely important and often determines the size of any scalable analytics solution. Usable data is not the same as raw data.

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