The Pull of Data Gravity
CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTS
The Pull of Data Gravity
The ways in which data is being created are changing . “ Data is now being created everywhere ,” explains Jeff Tapley , group managing director for EMEA at Interxion : A Digital Realty Company . “ What used to be created , stored and processed in very centralised areas is now being created all over the place : in our offices , our smartphones , even in our homes .” All this disparate data needs to be collected and aggregated if its value is to be extracted into the usable insights that make it valuable . This leads to a problem , however . Tapley warns that , “ as this data gets collected and stored , more applications and services start to use it , creating a compounding effect . Over time , so much data is accumulated that it becomes near impossible to move , use , or draw insights from , creating a Data Gravity effect .” Data Gravity - a term coined back in 2010 by Dave McCrory , who now works as Digital Realty ’ s VP of growth and global head of insights and analytics - compares large amounts of data to objects with physical mass . Like mass , the more data you have , the heavier it gets , becoming harder to move around and attracting other matter ( or , in the case of data , applications and services ) towards it . If handled incorrectly , cautions Tapley , Data Gravity can have profoundly adverse effects on a business , “ from creating numerous issues with data compliance , privacy and security to limiting innovation as businesses become overwhelmed with data they can ’ t turn into insight or actionable value .”
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