Big data gets bigger in 2012
Chief technology officer at Getronics, Tim Patrick-Smith sat down with the BBC to talk about big data in 2012 last week. There were a few interesting highlights from the interview that we wanted to cover on our blog since cloud and big data have both been very popular topics over the course of 2011. 
Patrick -Smith claims that convincing customers and businesses that cloud based solutions are safe and secure is the biggest technology problem that Getronics are faced with at the moment and they’ve been dealing with this difficulty for the last 12 months. The discussions right now are very much about asking the question ‘should we move to the cloud?’ while many companies are trying to move that discussion to ‘what are the benefits we get from the cloud.’ This has proved to be quite challenging.
In addition, Patrick-Smith believes that a certain amount of work needs to be done in order to make the best of cloud solutions. This includes being able to effectively classify data so that we can store it in appropriate locations based on security and frequency of use, as well as making sure that they are in line with the legislature of data retention requirements and some of the data protection rules around where data can be stored.
A large part of why people are starting to look at hybrid solutions from cloud service aggregators and cloud brokers involves wanting to know how to make much better use of their data and server budgets. This is so that they can introduce new solutions including ‘bring your own device’ and flexible working patterns, which has become popular.
According to Patrick-Smith, big data in 2012 will be what the cloud was to 2011. He believes that customers are now beginning to reap the benefits of moving to cloud-based solutions. He also believes that they are looking to extract a lot more value from the solutions by introducing strong analytics tools which were not available through the single data centre storage solutions.
In contrast, the latest data management and archiving solutions now allow more contextual searching for data which means that businesses don’t just store data but are able to mine information within it. This gives them business advantages within their sector.
Big data will allow information to become more accessible to mobile workforces no matter where they are, while retaining all of the security required for the data. This can ensure that the right levels of classification for data are applied.
Do you need systems in place to help you make sense of your data? Are you using the cloud or interested in adopting a cloud computing model in the next few months? Please share your thoughts with us in the comments below.
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