What is data ?

Data is distinct part of information, usually formatted in a special way. Generally software are separated into two categories: data and programs. Programs are collections of instructions for manipulating data.

We have the various types of data— as numbers or text on pieces of paper, as bits and bytes stored in electronic memory, or as facts stored in a person's mind. The people of mid-1900's used data as the information stored in computer.

Small form of data is called "datum" , data is the plural of datum, it means a single piece of information.



Machine Readable Information
Data is used to distinguish binary machine-readable information from textual human-readable information. Some applications make a difference between data files (files that contain binary data) and text files (files that contain ASCII data).

Also important to know is that in database management systems (DBMS), data files are the files that store the database information, whereas other files, such as index files and data dictionaries, store administrative information, known as metadata.


Data Phrases in Technology
As technology advances and changes, numerous phrases have been used over the years to describe data and how we use and analyze it, including structured and unstructured data, huge volumes of data is called Big Data, while older phrases, like data integrity or data mining are still widely used today.

• Big Data: The large set or volume of the structured and unstructured data that is difficult to process in traditional way.

• Big Data Analytics: The procedure of collecting large amount of data and analyzing large sets of data to discover patterns and other useful information.

• Data Center: physical or virtual form of house of computer infrastructure to store data of enterprises .

• Data Integrity: Refers to the validity of data. Data integrity can be compromised in a number of ways, such as human data entry errors or errors that occur during data transmission.

• Data Miner:  The application software that monitor the work of computer and  it's user .When collecting information.

• Data Mining: The database applications that monitor or find the hidden pattern ok in data set that we can predict for future.

• Database: A database is basically a collection of information organized in such a way that a computer program can quickly select desired pieces of data.

• Raw Data: Information that has been collected but not formatted or analyzed.

• Structured Data: Structured data refers to any data that resides in a fixed field within a record or file. This includes data contained in relational databases and spreadsheets.

• Unstructured Data: Information that doesn't reside in a traditional row-column database. As you might expect, it's the opposite of structured data.