What is the Difference Between Big Data and Metadata

The main difference between big data and metadata is that big data is a massive amount of data that cannot be stored and managed by traditional data handling mechanisms while metadata is a data that contains informative and relevant description about other data.

Basically, data is a piece of information. It can be a list of measurements, observations or a description of a certain thing. There are various types of data, and big data and metadata are two of them. Big data is a massive amount of data. It can be structured, unstructured or semi-structured. On the other hand, metadata contains specific information about other data. It helps to identify the features of the data.

Key Areas Covered

1. What is Big Data
     – Definition, Functionality
2. What is Metadata
     – Definition, Functionality
3. What is the Difference Between Big Data and Metadata
     – Comparison of Key Differences

Key Terms

Big Data, Metadata

What is Big Data

Every organization stores and analyzes data to improve productivity and to take future business insights. There is a large amount of data, and it is not possible to store these using traditional Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS). This kind of data is called big data. NoSQL databases help to store big data. Moreover, in an organization, data scientists, data analysts, and business analysts analyze big data to understand the organization current status and to take future business insights.  

Big data has main three properties: volume, velocity, and variety. First, volume refers to the amount of data. It is the quantity used to measure data such as Terabyte, Exabyte, and, Petabyte. Secondly, velocity is the speed of generating data. It is vital to generate high-speed data in scientific experiments and other real-time systems. Finally, variety is a considerable property that describes the type of data. Data can be in various formats such as text, audio, video, images XML, etc.

What is Metadata

Metadata is data that explains other data. It contains informative and relevant description about the other data. For example, author name, created date, and file size are some basic document metadata. By filtering metadata, it is easier for someone to locate a specific document.  Metadata for web pages contain descriptions of the page’s contents and the keywords linked to the content. Moreover, metadata is also available in images, videos, and spreadsheets.

Types of Metadata

There are various types of metadata. They are as follows.

Descriptive Metadata – It describes a resource for a purpose such as discovery and identification. Also, it includes title, abstract, author keywords, etc. 

Structural Metadata – It explains how compound objects are put together. Also, it describes the types, versions, relationships and other characteristics of digital materials.

Administrative Metadata – It provides information that helps to manage a resource and also describes how to create it, file type, the parties who can access it and other technical information.

Statistical Metadata – It describes processes that collect, process or produce statistical data.

Reference Metadata – It describes the contents and quality of statistical data.

Difference Between Big Data and Metadata

Definition

Big data is a large volume of complex data that is difficult to process using traditional data processing application software. Metadata is data that describes other data. Thus, this is the main difference between big data and metadata.

Importance

Furthermore, big data can be informative or not whereas metadata is always informative.

Processing

Processing is another difference between big data and metadata. Big data is not always processed whereas metadata is always processed.

Usage

Mopreover, big data allows NoSQL databases to store data with large quantity, high velocity, and various types while metadata helps to understand the nature and features of data. Hence, this is another difference between big data and metadata.

Conclusion

Big data and metadata are two types of data. The difference between big data and metadata is that big data is a massive amount of data that cannot be stored and managed by traditional data handling mechanisms while metadata is data that contains informative and relevant description about other data.

Reference:

1. “What Is Metadata? – Definition from WhatIs.com.” WhatIs.com, Available here.
2. “Metadata.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Nov. 2018, Available here.

Image Courtesy:

1. “895567” (CC0) via Pixabay
2. “Audio Tutorial – 08 Metadata” By Edvvc – Own work (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Commons Wikimedia