Introduction
 
![big]()
 
 What is big data? When we think about big data the first thing comes in our mind  is “Is big data a tool or a product”. Big data is not a tool or a product. Big  data is a term that describes the large volume of data (structured,  semi-structured and unstructured). Okay, let me simplify the term structured and  unstructured data. I am not going into detail so I am just giving an overview.
 
 Structured data: Structured data refers to relational database like sql,  oracle, etc. 
 
 Semi-Structured data: Semi-structured data is a kind of structured data but  it does not confirm the structure. Example xml and json. 
 
 Unstructured data: Unstructured data refers to non-relational database or  you can say no-sql database like mongodb, documentdb, bigtable, etc. 
 
 I will talk more on this in another article.
 
 Component of big data
 
 According to American IT research and advisory firm Gartner big data follow  “3Vs” model. 3V stand for Volume, Variety and Velocity.
 
 Volume: 
 
 As name suggests it indicate the volume of data. After spending some time on Google  I found some interesting facts about the data generated every day. You can check  on gwava.com. There are so many sources. Some of them are:
  	- Social Media 
- Sensor network
- Search data
- Email
- Military Surveillance
- Medicals
![structure]()
 
 Variety: As the name suggests it indicate the variety of data. You can use  data as document, email, audio, video, images and machine generated data from  sensors, etc.
 
![Variety]()
 
 Velocity: Velocity manages the streaming of data and the movement of data  at high speed.
 
 I hope this is helpful.