SNW 08: Enterprises to keep data forever

Unstructured data, cheaper storage and government regulations are driving companies to keep all their data forever - leading to massive changes in the enterprise storage market, according to an IDC analyst.

Speaking at Storage Networking World in Orlando, Benjamin Woo, IDC's vice president of enterprise storage systems, told attendees that many previous assumptions about managing data no longer apply.

The view that any data older than 90 days wasn't likely to be used again is becoming "archaic", he claimed. "That no longer applies anymore," Woo said, explaining that organisations - and individuals - are keeping data for longer, if not forever.

This is all because of the long-term persistency of data, he said. "This timeline for storage doesn't work anymore," he explained. "You need to think in terms of tens of years, hundreds of years.

Companies are keeping their data for longer for a few reasons. First, governments are requiring them to, for compliance reasons. "We love governments," Woo told the audience of storage vendors. "Government regulations keep all of us in jobs."

Second, organisations are holding onto data because they can. Databases are bigger and cheaper, meaning it's easier to hold onto data for as long as a company wants. "It's simpler and cheaper to keep everything forever," Woo explained.

Last, storage is becoming personal and more consumer. Both people and organisations want storage devices that are always accessible, protected, fast and intelligent - regardless of whether they are storing customer data or personal photos.

This last reason is one aspect that is driving increases in unstructured data - files such as Word documents or photos that are not held in databases. Such content - boosted by individuals creating their own content online - is growing at a rate of 120 per cent over the next four to five years, Woo said, while databases are growing at a rate of 30 per cent.

This increase in unstructured files means storage firms will need to develop and supply better enterprise-level search engines, in order to find what organisations need out of their mountain of data. They will also need to offer products which can still be read in hundreds of years.

Companies must be sure to not just store all that data, but to make it work for them, Woo said. "Let's do something with it," he said. "Storing data for the sake of storing data is not very interesting."

It's also not economical, so companies must make sure value can be derived through business analytics, for example. "Data must also generate value," Woo said.

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