How much data will end up in the cloud?

| May 10, 2010 | Comments (0)

IDC  have an  interesting new report called the “2010 Digital Universe Study“.

The mission of the paper is:

This White Paper, sponsored by EMC, is IDC’s forecast of the digital universe – all the 1s and 0s created, captured, and replicated – and the implications for those who take the photos, share the music, and generate the digital bits and those who organize, secure, and manage the access to and storage of the information.

You should check it out.

Even more interesting is CIO.com’s analysis of said report.

The report goes on to highlight some of the biggest issues the future torrent of data will pose:

  • In 2010, the Digital Universe (a fancy term for all the data created by consumers and businesses on earth, including video, audio, documents, etc.) will grow by 1.2 zettabytes, or 1.2 million petabytes.
  • By 2020, the Digital Universe will be 44 times as large as it was in 2009.
  • Surprisingly, the number of objects (i.e., files that contain digital data) will increase faster than the total amount of data, due to smaller file sizes – even though lots of large video and audio files are being created, so are massive amounts of small files created by devices, sensors, etc.
  • Searching: How to find a digital needle in a gigantic data haystack? Most of the data will be unstructured, implying new kinds of searching mechanisms are required.
  • Data Tiers: If you thought Hierarchical Storage Management was important before, imagine how necessary it will be in the face of zettabytes of data. A strategy to define a layered approach to storage, based on historical use, immediacy of need, and cost of storage will be necessary.
  • Privacy and Compliance: How can the increasing requirements of privacy and compliance be controlled with so much data under management?
  • Headcount Mismatch: While the amount of data will increase 44 times, and the number of files will increase 67 times, the number of employees will increase by only 1.4 times.

You can read the full article here

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Category: Cloud Computing News, Data Volume, IDC, Resources

About Onuora Amobi: Onuora Amobi is the founder and CEO of Nnigma, a leading online marketing firm headquartered in Pasadena, California. A Microsoft MVP with close to two decades of IT experience, he is also the co-author of the Windows 7 Deployment Guide for small businesses and IT Professionals(http://www.windows7deploymentguide.com). View author profile.