I ’ M SURE MANY BUSINESSES WOULD BE SURPRISED TO SEE HOW MUCH DATA THEY ARE STORING UNNECESSARILY . centres causing huge pressure on their storage capacity .
NOT ONLY WILL THIS FREE UP SPACE IN OVERLOADED DATA CENTRES BUT IT CAN ALSO REDUCE COSTS .
EDITOR ’ S QUESTION
JULIAN BONEHAM , DATA PRACTICE DIRECTOR AT NODE4
ata is growing
D exponentially as businesses are generating data at a higher pace and from more sources than ever . In fact , the volume of data created , captured , copied and consumed worldwide is predicted to grow 51 % by 2025 with 181 zettabytes of data expected to be generated globally . This creates a challenge for businesses who become overwhelmed with data and can no longer determine exactly what is relevant in terms of making informed business decisions . Many organisations have , therefore , previously decided to store it all , rather than risk deleting data that may be useful in the future , inundating data
I ’ M SURE MANY BUSINESSES WOULD BE SURPRISED TO SEE HOW MUCH DATA THEY ARE STORING UNNECESSARILY . centres causing huge pressure on their storage capacity .
Yet , businesses are becoming increasingly aware of the environmental impact of large data footprints , resulting in a change of attitude . Many are no longer willing to store all of their data and are taking the opportunity to better analyse what data needs to be stored and what can be removed . Not only is this more sustainable and helps reduce an organisation ’ s carbon footprint , but crucially it frees up space in data centres and is a key factor in encouraging consumers to reduce the pressure on these organisations .
While these are external benefits , it is also advantageous for the organisation . Tying it in with a wider data strategy , businesses can encompass data architecture and analytics requirements to determine the optimal volume of data that needs to be stored and from which data sources . This will enable organisations to discover what data they have , where it is stored , why it is valuable ( or not !) and if it needs to be stored or can be discarded .
It is also a great opportunity to clean-up legacy data that businesses probably didn ’ t even realise they were still storing . This could be for outdated or obsolete systems , formats , or technologies that are often difficult to access and
NOT ONLY WILL THIS FREE UP SPACE IN OVERLOADED DATA CENTRES BUT IT CAN ALSO REDUCE COSTS .
are no longer needed or used by the organisation . I ’ m sure many businesses would be surprised to see how much data they are storing unnecessarily .
Not only will this free up space in overloaded data centres but it can also reduce costs . After all , every business will pay for space within the data centre so making sure that you are only storing the information that is business-critical will significantly reduce costs . In the current economic climate where every penny counts , this is a key element to persuade consumers to reduce pressure on data centres as clearing out any unused or unwanted data can make a huge difference financially . www . intelligentdatacentres . com
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