Big data: A survey: The new paradigms, methodologies and tools

For several years we are living in the era of information. Since any human activity is carried out by means of information technologies and tends to be digitized, it produces a humongous stack of data that becomes more and more attractive to different stakeholders such as data scientists, entrepreneurs or just privates. All of them are interested in the possibility to gain a deep understanding about people and things, by accurately and wisely analyzing the gold mine of data they produce. The reason for such interest derives from the competitive advantage and the increase in revenues expected from this deep understanding. In order to help analysts in revealing the insights hidden behind data, new paradigms, methodologies and tools have emerged in the last years. There has been a great explosion of technological solutions that arises the need for a review of the current state of the art in the Big Data technologies scenario. Thus, after a characterization of the new paradigm under study, this work aims at surveying the most spread technologies under the Big Data umbrella, throughout a qualitative analysis of their characterizing features.