IBM Suddenly Notices “Mountainous Piles” of Data

Seems like it’s hitting everyone at once: there is a whole heck of a lot of data out there, and all of it must be stored. According to ZDNet’s recent coverage of IBM’s new storage strategy: “IBM estimates that the average individual’s ‘information footprint’ –the amount of data connected to a person–will grow to more than 16 terabytes by 2020 from roughly one terabyte, or trillion bytes, of data currently.”

In response, Big Blue is revamping its storage strategy to include an $8 billion investment in more than 30 products and services to help customers manage their storage needs. This is one reason that IBM has snapped up eight storage start-ups–including its widely reviewed  XIV acquisition. This is also why, despite the generally disheartening economic news out there, the storage sector is still going strong.

As we mention so often in this blog, this kind of meteoric growth in unstructured data must be met by significant optimization strategies. While many storage vendors are benefiting economically in the short term on this, the bigger picture is quite different. The real challenge in the future will be manage the data–particularly online data–in such a way that data centers do not continue to grow in a way that’s out of control.

Image: Technocycle