The Diverse and Exploding Digital Universe

Today an other report of IDC was published on the growth of digital data.

In 2007, the digital universe contained 281,000,000,000
gigabytes, which works out to about 45 gigabytes per person on
the planet.

This means, like few Belgian dailies as De Standaard and Le Soir mentioned, that in 2007 in average 10 DVD's per person on the planet have been filled with data.

Underneath some key findings coming strait from the Executive Summary. Check here for the White Paper.

The digital universe in 2007 — at 2.25 x 1021 bits (281 exabytes
or 281 billion gigabytes) — was 10% bigger than we thought.
The resizing comes as a result of faster growth in cameras,
digital TV shipments, and better understanding of information
replication.

• By 2011, the digital universe will be 10 times the size it was
in 2006.

• As forecast, the amount of information created, captured, or
replicated exceeded available storage for the first time in
2007. Not all information created and transmitted gets
stored, but by 2011, almost half of the digital universe will
not have a permanent home.

• Fast-growing corners of the digital universe include those
related to digital TV, surveillance cameras, Internet access in
emerging countries, sensor-based applications, datacenters
supporting “cloud computing,” and social networks.

• The diversity of the digital universe can be seen in the
variability of file sizes, from 6 gigabyte movies on DVD to
128-bit signals from RFID tags. Because of the growth of
VoIP, sensors, and RFID, the number of electronic
information “containers” — files, images, packets, tag
contents — is growing 50% faster than the number of
gigabytes. The information created in 2011 will be contained
in more than 20 quadrillion — 20 million billion — of such
containers, a tremendous management challenge for both
businesses and consumers.

• Of that portion of the digital universe created by individuals,
less than half can be accounted for by user activities —
pictures taken, phone calls made, emails sent — while the
rest constitutes a digital “shadow” — surveillance photos,
Web search histories, financial transaction journals, mailing
lists, and so on.

• The enterprise share of the digital universe is widely skewed
by industry, having little relationship to GDP or IT spending.
The finance industry, for instance, accounts for almost 20%
of worldwide IT spending but only 6% of the digital universe.
Meanwhile, media, entertainment, and communications
industries will account for 10 times their share of the digital
universe in 2011 as their share of worldwide gross economic
output.

• The picture related to the source and governance of digital
information remains intact: Approximately 70% of the
digital universe is created by individuals, but enterprises are
responsible for the security, privacy, reliability, and
compliance of 85%.

David

Prom-IT-heus

Few thoughts as a sequel to my prior post entitled ICT Therapy!? in which, referring to a column of Peter Hinsen, I discussed the frustrations of ICT professionals who in one way are obsessed with the control of reality and in the other way are facing the increasing complexity of the very own solutions they're using. The lost of control over technology is not only the premise of futurologists like Ray Kurzweil, it was already the theme of some Greek mythologies few millenniums ago.

The story of Prometheus is certainly the best illustration of this technological paradox. He was the Titan God who gave fire to humanity. Fire represents science and technology - the art of looking forward or anticipate (Προμηθεύς ="forethought"). Zeus, the supreme ruler of the Pantheon, didn't want mankind to reach this level of control and was very angry with Prometheus. As punishment, the latter "is chained to a rock where his regenerating liver is eaten daily by an eagle".

The liver - the only human internal organ that actually can regenerate itself to a significant extent - is a metaphor for "perpetual need". This way we can say that since mankind discovered technology, it has always wanted more, never being satisfied of its actual tools. This technological obsession has led humanity to a condition which is comparable to the punishment of Prometheus : chained to a rock !

The same can be said about the ICT professionals who Peter Hinssen describes as losing control over the system they're running and getting more and more stuck in an infinite web of applications. Some postmodern philosophers believe one day technology will take over control (the revenge of the machines !), but that's an other story...

David

ICT Therapy !?

Today I would like to take a closer look to an interesting column written two weeks ago by Peter Hinssen in the magazine Smart Business Strategies. In this article, entitled "The IT organism", Hinssen is suggesting a new approach to ICT management starting from the assessment that a big part of the actual frustrations are raising from the combination of two principles, both intrinsic to ICT: 1. the obsession with control; 2. the increasing complexity.

As a senior IT consultant himself, Peter Hinssen testifies how an increasing anxiety today is invading the moods of so many IT managers. On one hand they're driven by the strong will of controlling reality by structuring the data and processes of the company they work for, on the other hand they are confronted to the chaos produced by an infinite amount of new applications and devices, in extremely decentralised environments, and in permanent interaction with the uncontrollable Web!

In order to overcome this tension Hinssen comes up with two interesting parallelisms : the first between ICT and Quantum Physics (a), the second between ICT and Holistic Medicine (b).
(a) Just like Quantum Physics revolutionized Cartesian thinking by introducing an "Uncertainty Principle" ICT managers should evolve towards a methodology based on statistical probability, instead of keeping pretending they control all the bits and bytes. (b) Just like Western medicine, inspired by Asian philosophy, has shifted towards a holistic approach of the human body, ICT professionals should start interpreting an ICT system as a whole, as an organism, with a life of its own.

Although I really like the metaphors used by Hinssen, I'm not convinced the underlying methodological advises are revolutionary. As a an IT layman, I know that even if I'm updating my anti-virus and firewall as often as possible, there's still a probability for a virus to infect my PC; I'm taking in account this uncertainty. When I'm watching a movie in my Quick Time Player and I'm experiencing a slowdown in the image, I'm considering immediately this might be caused by Photoshop that's still active and absorbing too much CPU power. It's like the holistic diagnostic stating that a chronic headache is caused by hyperventilation. Many ICT professionals undoubtedly will be able to come up with much more complex examples of how they apply as well the uncertainty principle as the holistic approach in their daily ICT Therapy.

David