Big data is ubiquitous; it can be found everywhere, from small businesses to enterprise applications. It is of vital importance that this data is captured, stored, retrieved, and analyzed in the best possible way in order to get a deeper analysis and business intelligence. In this chapter, we learned about the concept of big data and where it originates from. We also discussed the different characteristics of big data and the theoretical foundation of data modeling and data management. 

In addition to this, readers got a chance to install a big data platform on their local machine for both macOS and Windows machines. We will be using these machines in upcoming chapters to create database models. In the next chapter, we will be discussing data-modeling and data-management platforms.