The Fourth Dimension of Big Data

Big Data is often described by the three drivers (dimensions) of: volume, velocity and variety. But Stefan Andreasen, Founder and CTO of Kapow has alerted us to the fourth – spread.

Volume describes the overall AMOUNT of Big Data. It almost goes without saying, that for data to be big, there must be a lot of it. Velocity describes the ability to interact with that data at high rates of speed. Variety has long been used to express the many different types and formats of data. Volume, Velocity and Variety of data are important domains of the modern data scientist.

Spread is another key dimension. Spread is just what it sounds like. It is the distribution of data. This can be incredibly widespread in terms of geography and data store and also across organizations and architectures.

Data needed for analysis is almost always spread all over the place. Creating access to this is an emerging aspect of modern data architectures. Kapow has made this a key driver of their solutions. Their extraction capabilities mitigate the effects of spread, enabling integration for mission support.

Kapow’s Katalyst Application Integration Platform for Big Data has the ability to turn spread into an advantage. For more on this see Stefan’s article on The Fourth Dimension of Big Data Nobody Writes About.