Page 425 - ITGC_Audit Guides

Big Data Basics

Big data is generated within organizations (e.g., transaction data, customer complaint data),
industries (e.g., customer adoption rates per product type), societies (e.g., traffic cameras, economic
data), nature (e.g., size, location, and frequency of earthquakes), and numerous other sources. In
some instances, organizations must purchase data from external sources; in other cases, data sets
are available for free use. Some examples of big data sources are outlined in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Examples of Big Data Sources

Source: The IIA

Structured and Unstructured Data

Historically, the majority of data stored within organizations has been structured and maintained
within relational — or even legacy hierarchical or flat-file — databases. Structured data is organized
and allows for repeatable queries, as much of the data is maintained in relational tables. It is often
easier to control than unstructured data, due to defined ownership and vendor-supported
database solutions.

6 — theiia.org