Managing Any Data, Anywhere with Any2
The amount of data in the world is staggering. And as more and more organizations adopt digitally orientated business strategies the total keeps climbing. Modern organizations need to be equipped to manage Any – any data, anywhere.
Analysts predict that the total amount of data in the world will reach 44 zettabytes by 2020 – one zettabyte = 44 trillion gigabytes. That’s an incredible feat in and of itself. But considering the fact that the total had only reached 4.4 zettabytes in 2013, the rate at which data is collected and stored becomes even more astonishing.
However, it is equally incredible that less than 0.5% of that data is currently analyzed and/or utilized effectively by the business.
Perhaps the most obvious answer is opportunity. You likely wouldn’t be reading this blog if you weren’t at least passively aware of the potential insight that can be derived from a series of ones and zeros.
Start-ups such as Uber, Netflix and Airbnb are perhaps some of the best examples of data’s potential being realized. It’s even more apparent when you consider these three organizations refer to themselves as technology companies, as opposed to the fields their services fall under.
But with data’s potential, potentially open for any business to invest in, action, and benefit from, competition is more fierce than ever, which brings us to what else this new wave of data means for business. That being effective data management.
All of this new data is being created, or even stored, under one manageable umbrella. It’s disparate, it’s noisy, and in its raw form it’s often useless. So to uncover data’s aforementioned potential, businesses must take the necessary steps to “clean it up”.
That’s what the Any concept is all about. Allowing businesses to manage, govern and analyse any data, anywhere.
The first part of the Any equation, pertains to Any Data.
Managing data requires facing the challenges that come with the ‘three Vs of data’: volume, variety and velocity, with volume referring the amount of data, variety to its different sources, and velocity the speed in which it must be processed.
We can stretch these three Vs to five when we include veracity (confidence in the accuracy of the data), and value.
Generally, any data concerns the variety ‘V’, referring to the numbered and disparate potential sources data can be derived from. But as we need to be able to incorporate all of the varying forms of data to accurately analyze it, we can also say any data concerns the volume, and velocity too – especially where Big Data is considered.
Big Data initiatives increase the volume of data businesses have to manage exponentially, and to achieve desired time to market, it must be processed quickly (albeit thoroughly), too.
Additionally, data can be represented as either structured or unstructured.
Traditionally, most data fell under the structured label. Data including business data, relational data, and operational data, for example.
