We often send off emails and store documents in the cloud without a second thought, but our information isn’t just whisked off into the wind as the term seems to imply. Actually, storage facilities housing cloud data don’t resemble anything close to the light, fluffy symbols that represent them. In reality, warehouse-sized computer networks form the cloud. In fact, there is no single cloud; instead, there are many cloud vendors with their own huge networks of virtualized, utility-like computing resources. Due to its ability to expand quickly and pool the storage and computing resources of vast amounts of discrete computers, the cloud is the logical choice for storing and analyzing big data.
If terms like the cloud and big data only sound vaguely familiar to you, rest assured that you’re not alone. According to Google Trends, people hardly mentioned the term big data in 2011 and then suddenly the phrase jumped to its peak search interest this summer.
What is big data?
You might have read esoteric articles throwing the term around haphazardly, but it’s hard to find a concise explanation of just what exactly big data is. As complicated as it might seem, big data is exactly what it seems: big. data. By “big,” we mean a collection of stored data that exceeds the capacity of on-site data management tools and the average processing application.
According to IBM, we collectively generate 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day — and no, they didn’t just make that number up. It’s easy to imagine how a number can reach such unrecognizable -illions when you consider the sources: digital pictures and videos, social media posts, sensors gathering climate information, and mobile phone GPS signals; those are just at the top of the list. All of that information swirling around in the digital world comes together to form what we know by the vague, yet somehow appropriate term big data.
Answering the who, what, when, where and how
Since the demand for data storage is weighing heavily on several industries, many marketers and business professionals are frantic with questions about what to do with all of the excess digital information. According to Mike Troester, Global Product Marketing Manager at SAS, “The bottom line for organizations of all sizes [is] you should not be doing less sophisticated analysis just because you have more data.”
It’s perhaps appropriate that big data is a relative term because it depends on the capacity of your own data storage system and the applications used to process and analyze the data to determine what you consider big. Tools like Quantcast, Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, and Alexa make it easier to collect and analyze data without using too much of your own storage and software systems.
Big and small: data storage for every business
Selecting the right data storage company for your small business will depend on your needs in terms of analytics, business intelligence, security and accessibility. Focus on your business value as opposed to business size. For example, if your company would benefit more from analyzing blog and social media data to develop a better idea of customer satisfaction, focus on these areas of your data storage and analysis plan. Make analytics your top priority with whatever company you choose, since this can help limit your data storage all together by filtering through important data and discarding those that don’t benefit your company in a positive way.
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Originally posted on July 10, 2013 @ 5:15 pm