By Sujain Thomas, Data IT Professional Big data management is the organization, administration as well as governance of large amounts of data. The process involves the management of both structured and unstructured data. The primary goal is to ensure the data is of high data quality and accessible for business intelligence as well as big data analytics applications. To content with the fast-growing pools of data, government agencies, corporations and other large organizations use big data management solutions. The data involves several terabytes or at times petabytes of data that has been saved in a range of file formats.Effective big data management enables an organization to locate valuable information with ease regardless of how large or unstructured the data is. The data is collected from various sources among them system logs, social media sites and call detail records.If you are just getting started with big data, it can be difficult for you to do everything right. This is more so when considering most data environments go beyond traditional data warehouse and relational database platforms. Technologies that are best suited for storing and processing the non-transactional forms of data are required. Big data is also continually shaping how new platforms function.It is your duty to decide which data needs to be kept and which has to be analyzed to improve your business processes. Proper data management will even give your business a more competitive advantage. This post focuses on a few helpful tips that will help you better manage a big data database.Outline your goals In order to know the data you need to collect and which you need to deal away with, you have to determine your goals. Failure to do this will cause you to collect massive amounts of data that are mostly irrelevant to your business every day running needs. Involve your team in discussing your goals. What is most important to your business?Most organizations end up collecting the wrong data because they don’t have clear goals and well mapped out strategies for attaining those goals. You want to collect relevant data; data that you will know what to do with it once you have it. You need to know where you are going before you start your journey.Secure the data You don’t want to go through the hard and expensive process of collecting data only to lose it, do you? You have to make sure that your data is both accessible and secure. It is not possible to analyze something you don’t have. Make sure that you implement firewall security, malware scanning, spam filtering as well as permission control for your team.Most businesses collect data from their clients through interactions with their websites and products. However, only a handful of these businesses take the time to implement precautions and measures that secure the data they collect. If the data is lost, it can cost you your clients’ trust, bankrupt your business because of heavy fines or simply cause your business to crash.Never take data lightly. It has the power to propel your business forward or shove you down the drain. Securing your data is the most important thing you need to do in big data management. Don’t hesitate to enlist the help of a database services expert.Keep the data protectedThreats to your database are not just human intruders and artificial threats. You have to account for the natural elements, which can easily corrupt your data or cause you to lose all your data. One thing you must never forget is that humidity, extreme cold and heat can damage your data. When the data is damaged, system failures follow leading to frustrations and downtime.You have to watch out for the environmental situations that can damage your data and make efforts to protect your data. In addition to implementing safety features in your system to prevent these problems, you have to make sure you have a backup of your database stored elsewhere. This backup should also be updated as regularly as possible.Do not ignore audit regulations Even when working with offsite database managers, it is imperative to ensure that they maintain the right components just in case of an audit. It is critical that you manage your data accordingly regardless of whether you are managing credit scores, payment data or other mundane data. You want to stay clear of liability and continue to earn the trust of your customers.Data has to be interlinkedYour database will be accessed through a number of channels. You don’t want to use different software for each of your desired solutions. Make sure that all your data can talk to each other. A communication problem between applications and your data and vice versa can cause tremendous problems.Some of the solutions you should consider using is cloud storage and remote database administrator among other tools. The goal is to create a seamless synchronization of your data. This is more so if more than one team will be accessing or working on the same data simultaneously.Know the data you need to capture In big data management, you have to know which data will be more important for a certain solution. This means you need to know which data you need to collect for various situations. You need to know which data you have to collect and when. Again, to do this right, you have to know your objectives and have a plan on how to achieve them.Adapt to the new changes Finally yet important, you have to keep up with the big data management trends. Software and data keep on changing. New products and tools are being introduced almost on a daily basis. To stay ahead of the curve and to build a better database, you have to keep up with the new technologies and tactics. It is imperative that you be flexible and willing to adapt new ways of big data management.Keeping the aforementioned tips in mind will help you handle big data better. You must also be willing to keep learning as no database management strategies are engraved in stone. They all change.[author] About the Author: Sujain Thomas is a data IT professional who works closely with remote DBA experts. She has written many articles that would help people who deal with database support services. You can read her articles online on Business2Community.com, Websitemagazine.com, sociable.co [/author]