You know the facts. Information is exploding at a rate greater than 40% year-over year. This is not news. The term information explosion has been around since the 1960’s and for the past 50 years, organizations have been focused on improving their approach for storing information. In the 1970’s, government regulations forced many organizations to establish enterprise-wide records management programs that would ensure the systematic retention of information for set periods of time. Once these new rules were in place, the “store everything” mentality was born.
As digital began to replace paper and Moore’s Law became a reality, legacy concerns regarding physical storage limitations started to fade. Information Managers finally felt they had the ability to store all of their digital information…so they did. This is where the story gets interesting.
In an October 2011 address, Peter Sodergaard, Senior Vice President at Gartner and Global Head of Research, stated, “Information is the oil of the 21st century and analytics is the combustion engine.” The belief that raw information contained immeasurable value became pervasive. No longer were companies just storing information to be compliant, they were actually storing a precious resource. As you can imagine, “store everything” became even more ingrained.