Venyu Blog

Ok, I’m familiar with terabytes, exabytes as well as petabytes. But this one is even new to me. According to a study recently released by Framingham, Mass.-based analyst house IDC, the worldwide volume of digital data grew by 62% between 2008 and 2009 to nearly 800,000 petabytes. IDC also forecasts that this volume will grow to 1.2 million petabytes or 1.2 “zettabytes” (ZB) in 2010 and reach 35 ZB by 2020. (For the uninitiated among us one zettabyte is approximately equal to a thousand exabytes or a billion terabytes).

The research also discovered (perhaps unsurprisingly), that if every byte of digital data created were to be stored, there would be a 35% shortfall in available storage. By 2020, IDC estimates the gap will grow to more than 60%.

IDC also found that in the coming years more than 34% of total worldwide digital data will be stored or secured by cloud services, including data transported using a cloud services email system or shared community. More than 14% of the data will be centrally hosted, managed or stored in cloud services. Optimistically, IDC concludes that the money organizations will save by using cloud services will drive innovation and more than $1 trillion in increased business revenue by 2020.

My conclusion? Like it or not whether you precede the suffix –byte with tera, peta exa or zetta, the migration from on-premise to off-premise or cloud storage is like the first “tie” ever hammered into place for the transcontinental railroad — it’s only beginning to realize its true potential.