The digital cosmos is expanding at a staggering rate. Just consider for a moment how much information is available via the internet today: we bank, shop, communicate, document, learn, browse and entertain ourselves through the internet.
And as more and more of our everyday processes and household objects come to be interconnected online (the so-called ‘internet of things’), the more and more data we will generate.
Data storage concerns
Recent research by EMC, a global leader in data storage, and the International Data Corporation suggests that the amount of data we use will have grown tenfold by 2020. It’s hard to imagine what ten times today’s data would possibly look like, and it raises some genuine concerns over storage.
The EMC and IDC research claims that the internet s current data capacity stands at about 4.4trn gigabytes; by 2020 it will be 44trn gigabytes. Today, our available storage can hold 33 per cent of the digital universe. By 2020, it will hold no more than 15 per cent.
The aftermath of the data big bang, however, holds huge business potential.
Jeremy Burton, president of products and marketing of EMC’s information infrastructure, said: ‘As more and more businesses capitalise on the social and mobile phenomenon, the enormity and potential of the digital universe grows, and businesses are presented with greater opportunities to analyse new streams of data and gain more value from the data they already have.’
