Chapter 1.7

A Brief History of Data

Abstract

Corporate data include everything found in the corporation in the way of data. The most
basic division of corporate data is by structured data and unstructured data. As a rule,
there are much more unstructured data than structured data. Unstructured data have two
basic divisions—repetitive data and nonrepetitive data. Big data is made up of
unstructured data. Nonrepetitive big data has a fundamentally different form than
repetitive unstructured big data. In fact, the differences between nonrepetitive big data
and repetitive big data are so large that they can be called the boundaries of the “great
divide.” The divide is so large; many professionals are not even aware that there is this
divide. As a rule, nonrepetitive big data has MUCH greater business value than repetitive
big data.

Keywords

Structured data; Unstructured data; Corporate data; Repetitive data; Nonrepetitive data;
Business value; The great divide of data; Big data

No book on data architecture would be complete without a narrative regarding the
advances made in the technology of data.

In the beginning were wired boards. These hand-wired boards were “plug-ins” to an early
rendition of the computer. The hardwired connections directed the computer as to how
data were to be treated.

Paper Tape and Punch Cards

But wired boards were clumsy and error prone and could handle only small volumes of
data (very small volumes of data!). Soon, an alternative was paper tape and punched
cards. Paper tape and punched cards were able to handle larger volumes of data. And
there was a greater range of functions that could be handled with punched cards and
paper tape. But there were problems with paper tape and punched cards. When a
programmer dropped a deck of cards, it was a very laborious activity to reconstruct the

Chapter 1.7: A Brief History of Data