Ignoring the Cloud = Fail!
Maybe I’m a little snarky because it’s a Friday afternoon, but I just can’t seem to understand how this article in Information Management, discussing “the causes, effects and solutions of growing data volumes,” can get by without once mentioning cloud-based options.
The article, “Managing the Data Explosion,” points to some great statistics that demonstrate how fast global data volumes are growing:
- There are now 45 GB of data for every human
- That number grows at 60% per year
- The proliferation of corporate data gathering applications and the accompanying historical data is feeding this trend
- Legislation requiring storage of data for longer periods requires more and more data to be retained
But, that’s where the article leaves reality and starts to sound like something written by a lobbyist for General Motors pointing to the internal combustion engine as the wave of the future!
Rather than looking forward, the author talks about supporting the same, tired, thirty-plus-years-old relational database technology with its obvious impact on operational costs, plus provides additional points around the costs of disaster recovery, DBA workload, and IT maintenance.
The author’s solution? Data archiving.
My response? FAIL!
Companies should do two things to cope with this data explosion:
- Outsource your storage, computing, and analytics needs to a cloud-based utility for a fraction of the cost of continuing to maintain your data center in-house.
- Look to more advanced data analysis technologies that aren’t mired in the decades-old column/row world and have been architected from the ground up to handle huge data sets and exploit cheap, virtually limitless cloud-based storage and processing.
Call it SaaS, on-demand, “in the cloud,” or whatever you want, but it is quickly becoming the difference between running a lean, effective, fast-moving, data-driven company and a slow, out-maneuvered, high-cost company with a bloated, complex, expensive data infrastructure.
It kind of reminds me of Toyota’s focus on the Prius vs. GM’s focus on the Hummer. And we all know how that’s going…