What Is Data Mining? 

Data mining refers to extracting or mining knowledge from large amounts of data. The term is actually a misnomer. Thus, data mining should have been more appropriately named as knowledge mining which emphasis on mining from large amounts of data. It is the computational process of discovering patterns in large data sets involving methods at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics, and database systems. The overall goal of the data mining process is to extract information from a data set and transform it into an understandable structure for further use. The key properties of data mining are Automatic discovery of patterns Prediction of likely outcomes Creation of actionable information Focus on large datasets and databases