Staying Ahead of Big Data is No Small Task

Civilization has passed through various ages, like the Stone Age, the Ice Age, Bronze Age, and so on. And now, we're progressing through another one - the Data Age. In fact, 90 percent of the world's data was created in 2013. With each new device and system comes an incredible amount of data that must be processed, stored, and catalogued. This is Big Data, and the way that your business works with this information will determine the success of your business in the Data Age.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race... Except with the Internet
As you can probably guess, Big Data is expanding at an enormous rate. Increased traffic on your company's intranet might be affecting the way your business processes information. On the outside, the Internet continues to grow and it is causing widespread lag and performance issues around the world. Older Internet routers cannot handle the complexity of the ever-growing Internet.

This is the reason you may have recently experienced less-than-stellar Internet service. According to an August report from North American Network Operators Group, old routers used by your ISP are to blame for the sluggish state of the Internet as of late. Several large companies, including AT&T, Comcast, Sprint, and Verizon all have seen performance problems.

The older routers used by ISPs are designed to handle 512,000 routes, but the limit has been breached. As ZDNet explains, "Routers share this map through what is referred to as Border Gateway Protocol routing tables, but when these routing tables grow too large for a router's memory, that router can no longer properly handle Internet traffic."

In order to beat out the Internet in the race, ISPs will need to update their hardware and routers to something that can handle the increasing traffic. But, due to the nature of Big Data, more and more technology and routes will be added and the process will start again anew. This can be linked to a theory called Moore's Law, which states that the complexity of technology increases over time. According to Twitter user Evgeny Morozov, when Moore's Law is applied to Big Data, "the amount of nonsense packed into the term 'Big Data' doubles approximately every two years."

As one can guess, this aspect of Big Data affects everyone using technology. For example, take your company's network. The more devices you connect to it, the more information is shared, and the more complicated your networks become. Applications get moved to the cloud, and before you know it, your old routers will collapse from the incredible amount of data moving to and from your network. This can cause expensive downtime, which no business can afford to deal with. Though this isn't always the issue with your network, it can often be a part of a bigger problem. Still, you have to start somewhere, and the routers are a great place to start piecing together your own networking puzzle. Preferred has the tools and solutions you need to clear any blockage found within your network.

Is Your Company a Victim of Data Sprawl?
These changes in Big Data are leading to small and medium-sized businesses falling victim to greater data usage. When this data starts to spread out over clouds and networks, this is called "data sprawl." WorkIntelligent.ly describes data sprawl for businesses:

In 2012, almost half (46 percent) of an organization's information is stored outside of its own data center. That's no surprise to any line of business manager that has field service, CRM, or portal applications. Couple those with Bring Your Own Device and other mobility solutions and you've got a recipe for runaway data. [...] smartphones and tablets now store 14 percent of business information worldwide, while almost 25 percent is in the cloud.

The amount of time spent retrieving data increases as your business's data is spread out all over the place. In order to minimize the effect this has on your business plan, you need a data management strategy. This plan should be able to accommodate for changes in future technology, and should include a schedule for hardware upgrades. With your data spread out so much, a single data backup solution will make your life easier. You'll be able to recover all of your files in the event of a disaster from one easy location.

Preferred is the key to doing big business with Big Data. With our proven technology solutions, you will achieve great things during this Data Age. Give us a call at 708-781-7110 to learn more.