Forecasts show a 50 percent increase in data creation in 2010 relative to 2009, with information set to grow from the previous year of 800 billion gigabytes (0.8 Zettabytes) to 1.2 Zettabyte’s this year. One Zettabyte equals one trillion gigabytes.
To provide some perspective of how much information 1.2 Zettabyes actual contains, it is equivalent to:
- The digital information created by every man, woman and child on Earth “Tweeting” continuously for 100 years
- 75 billion fully-loaded 16 GB Apple iPads, which would fill the entire area of the MCG to the brim 27 times, the Sydney Harbour Tunnel 104 times, Sydney Opera House 31 times, or the Sky Tower in Auckland 3,093 times
Moreover, the number of files, images, records and other digital information containers will grow by a factor of 67, each needing to be managed, secured and protected. Despite this growth, the number of IT professionals globally will grow only by a factor of 1.4.
This disparity between information growth requirements and the number of IT professionals around to manage that data will be met with increasing use of large scalable cloud based systems like Gmail and Flickr to store and manage data. It is forecast that by 2020 one-third of all digital information will live in, pass through the cloud.
It is envisaged that the amount of digital information created annually will grow by a factor of 44 from 2009 to 2020, as all major forms of media voice, TV, radio and print complete the journey from analogue to digital.
IDC estimates that the increase in IT dollars spent on innovation by companies in the cloud could drive more than $1 trillion in increased business revenues between now and the end of 2014. This projection will increase substantially as private cloud and other cloud computing models move into mainstream adoption.
The data growth rate study this data is from is available for download. The EMC Digital Universe page also features previous versions of the study as well as the worldwide Information Growth Ticker,
