In short, Big Data refers to the concept that we humans generate date at an astonishing rate on many different devices and in many forms. We email, we tweet, we Facebook, we Google... The list is endless. And everything we do, leaves a digital trail behind and somewhere, someone, is looking and analysing our data.
In fact, every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilisation up until 2003.
According to business intelligence company DOMO, every minute of every day:
• Google receives over 2,000,000 search queries
• Brands and organisations on Facebook receive 34,722 "Likes"
• Twitter users send over 100,000 tweets
• 47,000 apps are downloaded from the Apple iStore
• Tumblr blog owners publish 27,778 new posts
• Four Square users perform 2,083 check-ins
• YouTube users upload 48 hours of new video
To add to this mind boggling concept, the "internet of things" entails everything that can connect to the internet - from desktops and laptops to cars, industrial devices and even your toaster and other domestic appliances.
This means that your fridge can email you at work to let you know that your kids have used the last milk and you have to buy some on your way home, while your car will direct you to the garage if you're low on petrol.
Although it is an awesome idea that can make our lives significantly easier, how much data will be generated by this? The estimate is that it will be in the "zetabytes", which is 1,000 exabytes that is 1,000,000 petabytes that equals 1,000,000,000 terabytes which are 1,000,000,000,000 gigabytes...
While your mind is trying to calculate that, let's consider for a moment what this all means for businesses today. Where is your data stored? Who has access to it? How is it used?
Today, few organisations have data centres that can deal with the data flood that is created every minute of the day, let alone effectively mine this data to unlock its true value
As companies choose to consolidate data centre operations, virtualisation will become the norm. However, this will result in more dynamic power loads as applications and workloads move across the computing estate. The challenge for the data centre manager will be to optimise power and cooling efficiency, network reliability and performance, as well as the use of space.
Business leaders need to plan how they are going to manage, control and leverage Big Data as a valuable commodity that can be used to drive businesses, social interaction and more.
