Information
Overload
Written by: David Tan, CTO
Courtesy of CHIPS
 Experts
estimate that as of 1999, there was a total of 9 exabytes of
electronically created data in the world. To put that in
perspective, 1 exabyte is 1000 petabytes; a petabyte is 1000
terabytes; a terabyte is 1000 gigabytes – you get the idea. In
practical terms, if you were to digitize the 17 million books in the
Library of Congress, with full formatting, it would be approximately
136 terabytes. 9 exabytes would be roughly equivalent in size to the
information contained in approximately 70,000 libraries the size of
the Library of Congress!
That’s sounds like an
incredible amount of data, but frankly that’s nothing. Since 1999,
it is estimated that 12 NEW exabytes of digital data has been
created. More than double all that existed prior to 2000. Even more
amazing? More than 15 exabytes of new electronic data are now
created annually!
Numbers like this are
mind-boggling, and have little trickle-down impact on the average
business. Even a large enterprise measures the data they store in
terabytes at best, and never approaches petabytes or exabytes. So
it’s important not to think in this large scale, but to think on a
level that has more meaning to you and your business. Every thing we
do in every aspect of our business today has an electronic data
element. The world may be producing 15 exabytes of new data, and
that may be overwhelming to think about, but what about the 500
gigabytes of data you are producing every year?
Clearly this is
becoming a case of information overload. Dreams of the paperless
office, or streamlined electronic communications come with a price.
We need to store, index, archive and retrieve all that data. Not
only that, we need the infrastructure to move that data around our
networks, which includes local and wide area networks. And perhaps
the worst of all is the regulatory and compliance restraints being
put on businesses of all types and sizes. Not only do you need
access to the data, you often have to prove the security and
validity of the data, and provide an audit-trail of access and
changes. Something has got to give.
Think about the
frustration you have when you can’t find that proposal you wrote 6
months ago, or the email you received last week. How about when it
takes 3 minutes to open a document stored in the main office. Or
when you have 4 versions of a report and you have no idea which one
is the most current. Frustration and aggravation are one thing, but
what about the cost of a lawsuit where you have the burden of
providing historical documents related to the case. Sure there’s a
tremendous cost associated with retrieving those documents, but that
cost pales in comparison to the cost of losing the lawsuit, or
facing a fine for failing to meet regulatory requirements, or the
cost of bad publicity in every case. The massive influx of data has
caused businesses of all sizes to face IT challenges they were not
prepared for. These challenges are particularly difficult in small
and mid-sized companies who already have tight IT budgets, and often
lack the in-house expertise necessary to make it work.
It’s not all gloom and
doom, however. The cost of storage is falling drastically. More and
more companies are designing solutions to address this for smaller
companies with smaller budgets. Whether is a SAN for the SMB, a
company intranet built on SharePoint, or an inexpensive data backup
and archiving appliance, the products you need are starting to make
their way to market. The key is not to wait until you get
overwhelmed by a pile of 1’s and 0’s. Get out in front of it while
you still have a handle on your network. Work with an IT partner
that has experience with these problems and you just may be able to
keep your data under control and get some sleep at night. |
