Rapid advances in data collection and storage technology have enabled organizations to accumulate vast amounts of data. However, extracting useful information has proven extremely challenging. Often, traditional data analysis tools and techniques cannot be used because of the massive size of a data set. Sometimes, the non-traditional nature of the data means that traditional approaches cannot be applied even if the data set is relatively small. In other situations, the questions that need to be answered cannot be addressed using existing data analysis techniques, and thus, new methods need to be developed.

Data mining is a technology that blends traditional data analysis methods with sophisticated algorithms for processing large volumes of data. It has also opened up exciting opportunities for exploring and analyzing new types of data and for analyzing old types of data in new ways. In this introductory chapter, we present an overview of data Mining and outline the key topics to be covered in this book. We start with a description of some well-known applications that require new techniques for data analysis.