Algorithms For Dummies

Streaming Flows of Data

When data flows in huge amounts, storing it all may be difficult or even impos-

sible. In fact, storing it all might not even be useful. Here are some figures of just 

some of what you can expect to happen within a single minute on the Internet:

 

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150 million e-mails sent

 

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350,000 new tweets sent on Twitter

 

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2.4 million queries requested on Google

 

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700,000 people logged in to their account on Facebook

Given such volumes, accumulating the data all day for incremental analysis might 

not seem efficient. You simply store it away somewhere and analyze it on the fol-

lowing or on a later day (which is the widespread archival strategy that’s typical 

of databases and data warehouses). However, useful data queries tend to ask about 

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CHAPTER 12