Big data is data that contains greater variety, arriving in increasing volumes and with more velocity.

Big Data is the collection (generated and stored) of increasing volume of varied data from many different types and sources of data.

Data volumes that are exceptionally large, normally greater than 100 Terabyte and more commonly refer to the Petabyte and Exabyte range. Big data has begun to be used when discussing data warehousing and analytic solutions where the volume of data poses specific challenges that are unique to very large volumes of data including: data loading, modeling, cleansing, and analytics, and are often solved using massively parallel processing, or parallel processing and distributed data solutions.

• Big data. Oracle. Web page.
• Earley, S. (2011). The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management (DDDM). Technics Publications, LLC, New Jersey.