The explosive growth in big data technology means businesses should now get ready for unprecedented opportunities – as well as challenges. If recent trends are anything to go by, it has now become clear that the present infrastructure and systems are ill-equipped to handle the enormous resources that big data demands. Even if the initial hurdles of insufficient storage and processing power are overcome through cloud computing, there remains the insurmountable problem of bandwidth.
WANs and Big Data
This subject was the topic of research in a report released by Infineta Systems, who provide WAN optimization services. The discussion points out that enterprise big data is expected to grow 800% within the next three years, whereas the data networks are not ready for such loads.
The scenario is even more critical for small and medium businesses, where an average email attachment is hardly a few MBs. Imagine having to deal with datasets the size of a few terabytes or petabytes per user on such networks, and the gravity of the situation becomes clear. This is further compounded by the fact that most small businesses are either not connected to very high-speed networks, or possibly can’t afford to.
Meet Big Traffic
Many such reports are making it clear that present technology is incapable of handling what is being termed as Big Traffic – massive amounts of traffic generated throughout the WAN when big data is deployed. High performance and bandwidth optimization are going to be key in tackling this rising demand. Perhaps a better option for now would be outsourcing big data analytics to a capable vendor, and rely on their expertise for generating insights.
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