Big data is sometimes hard to wrap your head around. That’s what led Adeptia, a data integration company, to partner with Matt Zajechowski on an infographic that addresses what you don’t know about big data.
The first idea that the infographic addresses is data sizes. The sheer amount of data that is being accumulated every day is astounding. In the beginning, data was measured in bits, which is one eighth of a byte, now it has grown to exabytes.
For quite some time, many of us have thought in terms of gigabytes, but with 2.5 quintillion bytes of data being generated every day, we are now forced to think in larger terms such as terabytes, petabytes and exabytes.
A good way to wrap your head around the massive scale of an exabyte is the example in the graphic. It explains that one exabyte is equivalent to almost 3,000 times the entire content of the library of congress.
But that’s not the end. With big data expected to grow exponentially by 2020, there are new measures that have been created that are even beyond big data at this point. These measures include Zettabytes, Yottabytes, and Googolbytes.
The graphic also shows that the big four collectors of big data are Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon. AWS, Amazon’s cloud computing service, has clients that include the CIA, Netflix, Xpedia, Reddit, Adobe, Instagram and Dropbox.
While the top four may not be that surprising, other major player in big data might be. These companies include retail giant, Target and major shipping company, UPS. The latter became a big player with the introduction of ORION, a software that utilizes customer traffic and driving data to streamline routes and reduce emission.
Another company that might not be on a lot of people’s radar is VMWare, a cloud and virtualization software company offering storage and processing of big data on their virtual machine software and server space.
Amazon, Google and Microsoft all have over 1 million servers. The graphic below shows the other top companies with regards to server capacity.
The history of big data is all about growth, which is not surprising. However, the ways that it is expected to grow in the future might be.
The last few years have seen an explosion in big data. Some experts predict that 90% of all the data in the world today was collected in the last two years.
It is estimated that 40 Zettabytes will be created by 2020.
The future is all about cloud computing. Many companies are in the process of transitioning all or most of their data to the cloud. There is also a large increase in private cloud computing expected in the near future. Currently, only 7% of companies use completely private cloud computing; however, 24% of respondents to a survey said they were interested in putting their private data into the cloud.
With all of this movement to the cloud, people will be increasingly worried about the security of their information. Theft of intellectual property is a major concern for cloud users. This is an issue that cloud companies will have to address quickly.
The growth also means new opportunities for education and employment. 42% of U.S. and U.K. companies reported having hired IT professionals due to their particular skills related to cloud computing.
Big data analytics is still in its infancy and many companies have found it difficult to find qualified people in the field. This creates an increasing focus on education for the companies trying to find qualified candidates. This requires a need for higher education curriculums to change in order to meet the demand for the desired skill sets.
Finally, many people don’t think about the way that data affects their lives. It is already being used in many ways to predict our behavior. We can only expect that use to increase as analytics tools become more powerful and more accurate.
The infographic points to six key areas that it sees big data playing a role in our everyday lives both now and in the future.
These include: predicting sporting and election outcomes, how you interact with your smartphone, personalized advertising, more efficient traffic flow and epidemic detection and prevention.
For more information on big data, check out five ways big data is changing the world and other articles on RCRWireless.com.
