Big data boom threatens businesses

"Wrestling with big data is going to be the single biggest IT challenge businesses face over the next two years," according to Luigi Freguia, senior vice president, systems, Oracle EMEA.

Earlier this month Oracle highlighted the issues of big data for companies around the globe (especially Europe, the Middle East and Africa) in 2012.

The first Datacentre Index had use of in-house datacentres at 60 per cent – a few weeks ago the second index was revealed to be down to 44 per cent. Oracle is sure this is due to companies handling the increased volume of data by sending it out of house.

Oracle’s belief is backed up by over half the respondents for the Index, acknowledging the use of the external datacentres – in the first Index only 40 per cent nodded to this.

Freguia points out that if companies do not get a handle on the opportunities of big data over the next 24 months, then their businesses could go ‘very seriously adrift.’

The Index has good news in that there are very few enterprises that will NOT be investing in new datacentres – but as analyst Clive Longbottom points out, “this is not just because of big data.”

Many datacentres will have just run out of space, whilst other existing ones have power and cooling problems as a result of increased equipment densities – and so new centres are found. Co-location is attractive to some too, as it means someone else can deal with the problems.

However, at least there is a move to more datacentres, as Longbottom concluded, "a pretty complex mix of things overall, but big data will have its part to play in the overall move towards using external datacentre facilities."