ABSTRACT
The military establishment, mimicking the business world in many respects, is abuzz with the rapid growth in big data, data analytics, machine learning, and statistical learning using artificial intelligence as well as supervised and unsupervised learning. But the challenge is really understanding what all these concepts mean for the military and how do these concepts relate the fundamental statistical principles historically employed by the defense operations research analyst or statistician. This chapter defines the key terms in the area and discusses the key aspects of the modern data challenge: big data, data engineering, data science, data analytics, and data mining. The chapter then focuses on data analytics and the range of methods and concerns associated with data analytics, and a discussion of the some of the techniques within the data analytics realm. The chapter closes with recommendations and concerns for the future.
