IDC recently released a study, The Diverse and Exploding Digital Universe: An Updated Forecast of Worldwide Information Growth Through 2011“, sponsored by storage vendor EMC. The report updates a similar study conducted in 2007. The report forecasts your digital shadow. Your digital shadow is the amounts and types of digital information in the world. The new IDC 2008 research shows the digital universe is bigger and growing more rapidly than 2007 estimates.
This growth is in part a result of:
- Growing Internet access in emerging countries,
- Social networks made up of digital content created by many millions users,
- Growth in worldwide shipments of digital cameras, digital surveillance cameras, and digital televisions.
According to the study, the digital universe in 2007 was equal to almost 45 gigabytes (GB) of digital information for every person on Earth.
IDC’s research also examines how society and the digital universe interact with each another, how individuals actively contribute to the digital universe – leaving a digital footprint as Internet and social network users, email use, through use of cell phones, digital cameras and credit card transactions. “… we discovered that only about half of your digital footprint is related to your individual actions – taking pictures, sending emails, or making digital voice calls,” said John Gantz, Chief Research Officer and Senior Vice President, IDC.
What is your digital shadow
Enterprise IT organizations that gather the information which makes up digital shadows have a tremendous responsibility – in many cases mandated by law – for the security, privacy protection, reliability and legal compliance of this information According to Joe Tucci, EMC Chairman, President and CEO. “As people’s digital footprints continue growing, so too will the responsibility of organizations for the privacy, protection, availability and reliability of that information. The burden is on IT departments within organizations to address the risks and compliance rules around information misuse, data leakage and safeguarding against security breaches.”
The responsibility for governance of digital information remains primarily on the enterprise. Approximately 70% of the digital universe is created by individuals, yet enterprises are responsible for the security, privacy, reliability, and compliance of 85% of the digital universe.
Additional IDC findings
- At 281 billion gigabytes (281 exabytes), the digital universe in 2007 was 10% bigger than originally estimated,
- With a compound annual growth rate of almost 60%, the digital universe is projected to be nearly 1.8 zettabytes (1,800 exabytes) in 2011, a 10-fold increase over the next five years,
- The information explosion, in raw gigabytes, is predominately visual: images, camcorder clips, digital TV signals, and surveillance streams.
Digital Diversity – 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.
- Digital Cameras – In 2007 fewer than 10% of all still images were captured on film.
- Digital Surveillance – Shipments of networked digital surveillance cameras are doubling every year.
- A single email with a 1Mb attachment can create over 50 Mb of digital footprint,
EMC also provides a tool to calculate the size of your own digital footprint, download a copy of the Personal Digital Footprint Calculator
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him at LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.