In order to understand what data mining is it would be helpful to see the amount of data generated nowdays.

Here is a quote from eric Schmitt every two days now we create data as much as we created until the the dawn of our civilization to 2003. Who was ceo of google over a decade. This he said at a conference. We are able to create that much data in just two days now but we are not able to process all the information in that much data completely.The amount of data varies from 10 power 16 to 10 power 18. Its in astronomical nos and goes on. So we dont know exactly what is the amount of data exactly we are generating. Hence it is not possible to have a track of how much data is being generated and what it contains. So we mine the clusters of data to obtain any useful info regarding our needs. So we get bulk of data from the used clusters of data. Hence it is called data mining as a we mine the used gold ores of bulk level to obtain small gold pallets.

every two days now we create data as much as we created until the the dawn of our civilization to 2003.

Data mining is the process of extracting patterns from data. It is the set of activities used to find new, hidden or unexpected patterns in data or unusual patterns in data. It is the process of extraction of interesting (nontrivial, implicit, previously unknown and potentially useful) patterns or knowledge from huge amount of data. It can also be defined in short as Discovering hidden value in your data warehouse. Data Mining is a part of the overall process of Knowledge Discovery in databases (KDD).

 In the corporate world, data mining is used most frequently to determine the direction of trends and predict the future. It is also employed to build models and decision support systems that give people information they can use. Often used as a means for detecting fraud, assessing risk, and product retailing. Data mining involves the use of data analysis tools to discover previously unknown, valid patterns and relationships in large data sets.

EVOLUTIONARY STAGES OF DATA MINING

Data Collection (1960s)

Data Access (1980s)

Data Warehousing & Decision Support (1990s)

Data Mining (Emerging Today)

KNOWLEDGE DISCOVERY IN DATABASE (KDD) AND DATA MINING

KDD refers to the overall process of discovering useful knowledge from data. It involves the evaluation and possibly interpretation of the patterns to make the decision of what qualifies as knowledge. It also includes the choice of encoding schemes, pre-processing, sampling, and projections of the data prior to the data mining step. Data mining refers to the application of algorithms for extracting patterns from data without the additional steps of the KDD process.

Knowledge Discovery (KDD) Process

Increasing potential to support business decisions

Decision Making
Data Presentation Visualization Techniques Data Mining Information Discovery

End User

Business Analyst Data Analyst

Data Exploration Statistical Summary, Querying, and Reporting Data Preprocessing/Integration, Data Warehouses Data Sources Paper, Files, Web documents, Scientific experiments, Database Systems
DBA

MAJOR ELEMENTS OF DATA MINING

Data mining consists of five major elements: Extract, transform and load transaction data onto the data warehouse system. Store and manage the data in a multidimensional database system. Provide data access to business analysts and information technology professionals. Analyze the data by application software. Present the data in a useful format, such as a graph or table.

 Data mining is a young discipline with wide and diverse applications Some application domains Biomedical and DNA data analysis Financial data analysis Retail industry Telecommunication industry