Here there be space-age data appliances
Looking through vast archives of corporate information for meaningful analytics is still somewhat like digging for buried treasure, but the advent of hard disk management and file tracking solutions that are tuned to big data make it easier to harvest these kinds of useful records. Businesses across all market and industry lines are making their move on these assets, seeking better marketing strategy and consumer insights from mining internal files, as well as isolating threats to continuity, building superior retention and adding to the overall integrity of the corporation.
Space, we’re going to space
NASA is among the most recent agencies to make use of big data for its Mars rover project, Forbes reported. Considering the vast volume of new data the rover creates on a daily basis, the network capacity it needs to transport these files from the surface of Mars back to Earth and the overwhelming document size of each of the 5,000 or more pictures it sends three times a day on a regular basis, it’s no surprise that hard drive management was a key concern for scientists when building the machine. Add to that the overhead storage needed to program all the drivers, machines, backup fail safes, onboard equipment and landing gear to begin with, and it’s clear that NASA is probably one of the world’s most prominent big data junkies.
Navigating new data trends
Let’s also not forget the kind of data infrastructure needed to receive and house all these records, plus the capacity to analyze them. These kinds of assessments are not unique to NASA, and the scale the agency works on will not be limited to corporations of that scope for much longer. The big data wave has about another seven years to develop, according to some experts, so IT professionals are only now getting into the thick of it.
IDC wrote that companies are seeing these kinds of deployments and acting aggressively to protect themselves from getting caught unawares. A survey of data appliances that operate on the anticipated big data scale has created an industry that the research firm expects to hit $24 billion worldwide by 2016. That adds up to about a one-third increase in overall sales per year, every year, for the next three years. IDC vice president Dan Vesset said that the results point toward more prominence of hard disk management and big data tools in corporate infrastructure moving forward, including enhanced security to go with overall storage capacity.