White Paper

Experts predict in the next five years the amount of data that exists will grow by tenfold. This data explosion is in large part thanks to 'big data'-weblogs, equipment logs, social media, email, sensors, photographs, video footage, etc.-that is typically unstructured and voluminous. New networked devices and applications are collecting more data than ever, and more organizations are holding on to it-in the second quarter of 2011, storage companies shipped 5,429 petabytes of disk capacity, up 30.7 percent from the previous year's second quarter, IDC reports. While often challenging to store and manipulate, companies are beginning to realize that analyzing big data can give them deeper insight into their own operations as well as their customers, partners, and business.