Digital information growth outpaces projections

Bengaluru: EMC announced the number 3,892,179,868,480,350,000,000. John Gantz, Chief Research Officer, IDC, explained, “That's the number of new digital information bits created in 2008. Contrary to popular belief, as the economy deteriorated in late 2008, the pace of digital information created and transmitted over the Internet, phone networks, and airwaves actually increased.”

According to the new EMC-sponsored IDC study “As the Economy Contracts, the Digital Universe Expands”, the amount of digital information created in 2008 grew three percent faster than IDC's prior projection. The Digital Universe is expected to double in size every 18 months. In 2012, five times as much digital information will be created versus 2008.

The new findings highlight the third update to the digital universe study, which measures and forecasts the vast amounts and diverse types of digital information created and copied annually. Calculated to be 487 billion gigabytes in size, the amount of information created in 2008 is the equivalent of more than:

• 237 billion fully-loaded Amazon Kindle wireless reading devices
• 4.8 quadrillion online bank transactions
• three quadrillion Twitter feeds
• 162 trillion digital photos
• 30 billion fully-loaded Apple iPod Touch
• 19 billion fully-loaded Blu-ray DVDs

While the pace of digital information increased in 2008, IT budgets declined, thus creating an even larger divide between the amount of information generated and the amount of IT resources purchased and deployed to manage it. This dynamic further validates the demand for tools and techniques (eg virtualization, deduplication and other data reduction technologies, etc) geared specifically to managing more with less.

Joe Tucci, Chairman, President and CEO, EMC said, “Whether you're a student, senior executive, stay-at-home parent or surgeon, the growth of digital information collides with every-day business and every-day life. Those who use information growth to their advantage are seeking out new and creative ways to manage, secure and protect the rapidly-growing volumes.”

Key findings from the 2009 IDC Digital Universe study signal fundamental shifts in the areas of information growth, security, compliance and management.