The world’s data is more than doubling every two years - with a colossal 1.8 zettabytes to be created and replicated in 2011, according to a major study.

The EMC-sponsored IDC Digital Universe study, “Extracting Value from Chaos” found
that the global data volume is growing faster than Moore's Law.

The study’s fifth anniversary, measuring and forecasting the amount of digital information created and copied annually—analyzing the implications for individuals, enterprises, and IT professionals—has huge economical, social and technology implications for big data and other opportunities.

In terms of sheer volume, 1.8 zettabytes of data is equivalent to:
* Every person in the United States tweeting 3 tweets per minute for 26,976 years nonstop;
* Every person in the world having over 215 million high-resolution MRI scans per day
* Over 200 billion HD movies (each 2 hours in length)—would take 1 person 47 million years to watch every movie  24x7
*The amount of information needed to fill 57.5 billion 32GB Apple iPads.

The forces behind this relentless growth are driven by technology and money. New “information taming” technologies are driving the cost of creating, capturing, managing and storing information down to one-sixth of what it was in 2005, the study said.

Additionally, since 2005 annual enterprise investments in the Digital Universe - cloud, hardware, software, services, and staff to create, manage, store and generate revenue from the information - have increased 50 per cent to $4 trillion.

The study found that the skills, experience, and resources to manage the deluge of data and resources simply is not keeping pace with all areas of growth.

Over the next decade (by 2020), IT departments worldwide will experience 10X the number of servers (virtual and physical); 50X the amount of information to be managed; 75X  the number of files or containers that encapsulate the information in the digital universe, which is growing even faster than the information itself as more and more embedded systems, such as sensors in clothing, in bridges, or medical devices; and 1.5X the number of IT professionals available to manage it all.

While cloud computing accounts for less than 2 per cent of IT spending today, IDC estimates that by 2015 nearly 20 per cent of the information will be "touched" by cloud computing service providers — meaning that somewhere in a byte's journey from originator to disposal it will be stored or processed in a cloud. Perhaps as much as 10 per cent will be maintained in a cloud.

The study also said the amount of information individuals create themselves - writing documents, taking pictures, downloading music, etc. - is far less than the amount of information being created about them in the digital universe.

While 75 per cent of the information in the digital universe is generated by individuals, enterprises have some liability for 80 per cent of information in the digital universe at some point in its digital life.

“The chaotic volume of information that continues growing relentlessly presents an endless amount of opportunity—driving transformational societal, technological, scientific, and economic changes,” said Jeremy Burton, chief marketing officer, EMC Corporation. “Big Data  is forcing change in the way businesses manage and extract value from their most important asset – information.”  - TradeArabia News Service