Unstructured Data

Any data that’s not present in a database or any other kind of data structure is called Unstructured Data. Unstructured data is of two types:

• Textual

• Non-textual

Some examples of textual unstructured data are emails, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, etc. and some of non-textual unstructured data are jpeg images, flash video files, etc.

In any enterprise, quite a staggering amount of unstructured data is accumulated in a year. Most experts are of the opinion that the amount of unstructured data in any organization is 80-90 percent of all data. And this amount increases significantly faster than structured data.

This type of data can prove to be expensive in terms of storage. Most organizations seek both hardware and software solutions to counter this issue, in terms of managing and storing this data in a systematic manner.

It is quite difficult to analyze unstructured data. Some enterprises use appropriate software to search and extract important information from this type of data. They do this in the belief of being able to make quality business decisions.