Types of Digital Data: Structured, Semi Structured, Unstructured Data

26/10/2022 0 By indiafreenotes

Structured data:

Structured data is data whose elements are addressable for effective analysis. It has been organized into a formatted repository that is typically a database. It concerns all data which can be stored in database SQL in a table with rows and columns. They have relational keys and can easily be mapped into pre-designed fields. Today, those data are most processed in the development and simplest way to manage information. Example: Relational data.

Semi-Structured data:

Semi-structured data is information that does not reside in a relational database but that has some organizational properties that make it easier to analyze. With some processes, you can store them in the relation database (it could be very hard for some kind of semi-structured data), but Semi-structured exist to ease space. Example: XML data.

Unstructured data:

Unstructured data is a data which is not organized in a predefined manner or does not have a predefined data model, thus it is not a good fit for a mainstream relational database. So for Unstructured data, there are alternative platforms for storing and managing, it is increasingly prevalent in IT systems and is used by organizations in a variety of business intelligence and analytics applications. Example: Word, PDF, Text, Media logs.

Structured Data Semi Structured Data Unstructured Data
Level of organizing Structured Data as name suggest this type of data is well organized and hence level of organizing is highest in this type of data. On other hand in case of Semi Structured Data the data is organized up to some extent only and rest is non-organized hence the level of organizing is less than that of Structured Data and higher than that of Unstructured Data. In last the data is fully non organized in case of Unstructured Data and hence level of organizing is lowest in case of Unstructured Data.
Transaction Management In Structured Data management and concurrency of data is present and hence mostly preferred in multitasking process. In Semi Structured Data transaction is not by default but is get adapted from DBMS but data concurrency is not present. While in Unstructured Data no transaction management and no concurrency are present.
Flexible and Scalable As Structured Data is based on relational database so it becomes schema dependent and less flexible as well as less scalable. While in case Semi Structured Data data is more flexible than Structured Data but less flexible and scalable as compare to Unstructured Data. As there is no dependency on any database so Unstructured Data is more flexible and scalable as compare to Structured and Semi Structured Data.
Performance In Structure Data we can perform structured query which allow complex joining and thus performance is highest as compare to that of Semi Structured and Unstructured Data. On other hand in case of Semi Structured Data only queries over anonymous nodes are possible so its performance is lower than Structured Data but more than that of Unstructured Data While in case of Unstructured Data only textual query are possible so performance is lower than both Structured and Semi Structured Data.
Means of Data Organization Structured Data is get organized by the means of Relational Database. While in case of Semi Structured Data is partially organized by the means of XML/RDF. On other hand in case of Unstructured Data data is based on simple character and binary data.
Technology It is based on Relational database table It is based on XML/RDF(Resource Description Framework). It is based on character and binary data
Transaction management Matured transaction and various concurrency techniques Transaction is adapted from DBMS not matured No transaction management and no concurrency
Versioning As mentioned in definition Structured Data supports in Relational Database so versioning is done over tuples, rows and table as well. On other hand in case of Semi Structured Data versioning is done only where tuples or graph is possible as partial database is supported in case of Semi Structured Data. Versioning in case of Unstructured Data is possible only as on whole data as no support of database at all.