The amount of data worldwide will explode over the next nine years, growing 20-fold, and companies cannot afford to keep all of it, says EMC.
Michael Brown, EMC's Information Intelligence Group pre-sales manager for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, says companies cannot continue doing business as usual, because the amount of data globally will explode.
“We've got to put some intelligence behind the data we keep... because it is growing too quickly.”
Brown, quoting IDC figures, says by 2020, there will be 35.2 Zettabytes of data in the world, up from 1.8 Zettabytes last year, and 0.8 Zettabytes in 2009. Brown was speaking this morning during the company's Momentum 2011 conference in Berlin, Germany.
According to whatsabyte.com, 1 024 Terabytes is a Petabyte, while 1 024 Petabytes equates to an Exabyte, and 1 024 Exabytes is a Zettabyte.
Bin it
Brown says this amount of data will not only require more storage space, but also more floor area in data centres, and a bigger need for air conditioning. He says that while storage is becoming more cost-effective, other items, such as energy, are not.
Last year, Google used the same amount of power as 200 000 US households, a figure that will grow as more data is created, says Brown. “Data growth is exploding now, and we've got to control it.”
The cost of storage will never reach zero because of all the associated expenses, says Brown. If it did, “EMC would be out of business”.
In addition, says Brown, quoting the IDC, more than a third of all storage is wasted, because the data content is inactive, obsolete or unknown. “That's a staggering amount of storage that is being wasted.”
Brown adds that unknown data is worthless unless it is turned into information. “If you don't know what's inside, your data is nothing but ones and zeros.”
Companies need to use tools, such as EMC's SourceOne File Intelligence, to catalogue and analyse data, which then allows them to act on the information, says Brown. He adds that knowing what data is relevant allows firms to save money by using cheaper storage methods or deleting obsolete information. “We cannot keep everything.”
Mawson is hosted in Berlin courtesy of EMC.
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