Friday, August 05, 2016

Growing Volumes of Data Create Management Issues

The world supply of data is growing rapidly. That's no secret. At present the global volume of data is 4.4 zettabytes. One Zettabyte equals one sextillion bytes or 10 to the 16th power or one trillion gigabytes. It's hard to imagine, but clearly that's a lot of data. Predictions by IDC in a recent study indicate that global data will increase from 4.4 to 44 zettabytes over the next four years. Business will bear the brunt of this growth in data and will need to manage it.

The cloud is crucial to managing the data. But there also needs to be an organized and efficient means of integrating the data with corporate systems, including ERP and other enterprise systems. An additional complication is that much of the ultimate output needs to be channeled to mobile devices, including smartphones. There is a growing realization that the mobile world in which we live is an ongoing reality and the primary means of consuming information for the foreseeable future.

While systems integration has been with us for many years, the integration process involved with the new data is a relatively new field. It must take place in the cloud first and that primarily involves organizing the data so it can be processed. Companies are using "data lakes" for the first stage and then transitioning to cloud based data warehouses and various applications that feed into mobile apps.

For an interesting overview of the processes, here's a good article on the subject.



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