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Where Will You Store The Rushing Waves of Content?

Written by: Andy Marken

Article Overview: The growth of graphic content -- photo, video, presentations -- means storage will continue to be a thriving market for years to come. Understanding the needs may assist you in handling your content and providing services to others.

Where Will You Store The Rushing Waves of Content?

“C'MON, YOU B***H!” – Capt. Billy Tyne (George Clooney), The Perfect Storm (Warner Bros, 2000)


A Little Help – Isn’t it great for content creators/consumers? Want some more capacity you just call or visit your closest store or work with your IT suppliers and they deliver more storage. But there will come a time when just calling out won’t get you more capacity or storage satisfaction. The other end of the call may just go dead. Source – Warner Bros

You’ve got your office wired/wireless network, your home network, your multimedia notebook system, your TV and PVR, your MP3 (ok iPod) player, got your digital camera/camcorder, got your everything smartphone.

Face it…you’ve got every leading edge device you can carry!


Figure 1 - Never Enough – What happened to the time when people (kids mostly) were told to go outside and play? Those times are gone now young and old we need every entertainment/communications device imaginable. Best of all they all require some type of storage to be enjoyed. Source -- Forrester

You’re…Awesome !!!!

So why do you feel uneasy?

Why are IT people sweating more bullets than a bank officer?

Maybe it’s too much of a good thing.

Phone, camera, computer, software, content development folks are packing more power, more features, more capabilities into their products at ridiculously low prices.

Internet connectivity now spans the globe.

Broadband service is found in more and more homes.


Figure 2 - Rising Demand – It isn’t enough for people to be connected; they need to be connected with high capacity broadband service. Source -- IDC

Getting On Board
In five years the number of homes with broadband worldwide will triple and by then more than two million people will be on the Internet (the rest will be on their phones).

Good and bad content is being viewed/downloaded in boob tube offerings.


Figure 3 - Anytime Entertainment – Folks quickly warmed to the idea of watching what they wanted, when they wanted to watch it instead of living by the TV schedule. With Web 2.0 services you can always connect with just the entertainment you want to enjoy. People are increasingly turning to the computer connection. Source -- Ipsos

Every day more than 100 million YouTube videos are streamed to folks around the globe.

Even network and TV stations are offering online video content.

People turn to the Web regularly for their news, music videos, TV shows, sports and “other” content.

Download video and IPTV viewing is starting to worry network and Hollywood executives. They’re struggling to figure out how to monetize the situation.

How do they make a buck or two from Hawaii Five-O or Gilligan’s Island or MASH or Bonanza or… ?

Tellywood is working hard to ensure its moneymaker rides out the storm. They ask each other the same question Bobby did…“Skip, what are we gonna do about those numbers? They suck.”

At the same time the industry is putting too many really fun, really storage sucking toys in people’s hands.

That Sucking Sound
Storage needs just keeps building and building...

DVDs hold roughly 6GB.

BDs hold 25-50GB.

More than 500 million digital TVs will be in use by 2011.

Five MP cameras produce 40MB uncompressed images.

A new camera was announced (obviously for pros or braggarts) that captures 50MP or 400MB uncompressed images.

The biggest camera producer in the world?

Nokia!!

By 2011 more than three billion camphones will be in use. They’ll be capturing billions of digital photo/video content.

The demand for personal storage devices (external HDs) seems insatiable.

By 2011 the demand for these units will surpass that of desktop PCs.

We’re carrying more storage with us every day in the forms of mobile phones, iPods, PDAs, GPSs, games, other CE products.

It still isn’t enough !

That may sound great if you’re a storage device supplier but for IT folks as Capt. Billy (George Clooney) said,” No rest for the weary.”

The problem is regular folks produce 70 percent of the content. However organizations are responsible for keeping 85 percent of content safe, secure, available.

Right now these professionals are responsible for most of the 281 Exabytes of all kinds of stuff.

It isn’t just Tellywood’s stuff or your stuff.

Tracking the Storm
They’ve struggling to track/manage/save little things like RFID tag data, Twitters, security camera data (Britons estimate they are photographed 300 times a day and China has spent billions on video security systems for the Olympics).

In addition they worry about little things like the shifting tides of legal and regulatory requirements.

As Moss said, “What in Jupiter's Balls?”

So they create, copy, replicate…just in case.

Yeah, the numbers look a little over powering.

Surprise!

It’s going to get worse.

We’ve got a lot of countries around the globe that are just getting Internet access.


Figure 4 - More Is Needed – Living as we do in one of the more progressive industrial countries so we can go online and grab/enjoy content any time we want, it is difficult to believe but there are those who are bandwidth deprived. But there are a large number of emerging countries who are building out their Internet infrastructure and they are moving directly to broadband which means they’ll be sucking up your capacity. Source -- TCA

Once they experience the comfort of the content diversity that is out there, they’re going to be as happy as Capt Billy, “The fog's just lifting. Throw off your bow line; throw off your stern. You head out to South channel, past Rocky Neck, Ten Pound Island…Is there any thing better in the world?”

Last year storage shipments just matched the volume of storage needed.

According to IDC in five years the volume of digital information created, captured, replicated worldwide will increase tenfold!


Figure 5 - Swelling Content – Add the growing number of content creators who are uploading their work to the Web, the increase in broadband services in emerging countries and our desire to grab, store, copy, distribute content and no wonder storage requirements are going to rise 10 fold in the years ahead. Source -- IDC

Storage folks – HD, flash, tape, optical -- won’t come close to meeting demands.


Figure 6 - Point of No Return – According to IDC we may never pass this way again. Past the point when there was enough storage capacity for all of the content that was being developed, shared, copied, moved around. It will be interesting to see where your content sleeps at night. Source -- IDC

As Linda Greenlaw screamed over the radio, “Billy? Get outta there! Come about! You're steaming into a bomb! Billy, can ya hear me? You're headed right for the middle of the monster! Billy?...”

Ok we’re not as bad off as Billy…yet !

After all you can always take advantage of the newest solution in town – cloud computing.


Cloud Storage – Perhaps it is a photo of the universe we occupy but it has a strong correlation with the storage universe where content and bit buckets are flying and floating around…somewhere. Exactly how do you stake out your corner of the cloud? Source -- NASA

Jeezz that looks real inviting !!!

As Murph said, “You can say what you want, but... I'm sure glad you know how to swim.”

Sorry. We’ll go out and buy a couple of external TB HDs…10 spindles of DVDR DL media…a life ring of flash memory…we’ll good for a few more months.

But what about the rest of the boats in the building sea of content?

I’m Getting Mine
Everyone is creating, grabbing, storing, copying, distributing, sharing video clips, TV shows, songs, voice packets, financial records, sensor signals, emails, text messages, documents and lord knows what else.

We’re also awash with unstructured data – images, video clips, documents, database numbers/characters.

Finding the bits in the bytes is tricky.

Some days sailing just isn’t fun !!!

Content, knowledge, information have outstripped our ability to store it.

Sure, most of that data is yours…and yours…and yours.

Cargo Management
Unfortunately enterprises ISPs, companies, financial institutions, government agencies have the task and responsibility to keep that content safe and secure for you.


Figure 7 - Yours, Mine, Ours – While individuals will develop the majority (an estimated 70%) of the content that is distributed and stored, it will be IT departments that are responsible for keeping the content safe, secure, available. With new Internet-centric laws and guidelines being established it is a huge challenge for companies and organizations around the globe. Source -- IDC

What do they keep?

How long?

Where?

Why?

To answer these questions we need Sgt. Mitchell to stroll in and say, “Good Afternoon, Madam. I'm Sgt Jeremy Mitchell, and I'll be your pararescue jumper today. How are you doing?”

We’ve passed the point of no return.

Content and storage requirements are swelling.

The digital world is here.

Simply building more Exabytes and Zettabytes of storage isn’t enough.

Melissa was right, “This weather fax just came in. Edie, have a look at this.”

More, bigger bit buckets is no longer the answer. We need intelligent storage management is vital going forward.

Eddie understated it when he studied the weather fax and said, “This is a hurricane coming straight at us!”


Climb Baby!!! -- With the onslaught of content heading straight at you, it is easy to wonder how much storage capacity – HD, optical, semi memory, tape – you can have in your home or with you at any one time. As you watch the crest coming at you, you have to wonder if your storage approach – at home and at the office – is equal to the challenge. Source – Warner Bros

The industry has to do is figure out how to ride out the storm !!!


Charts, illustrations available by contacting andy@markencom.com

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Article Tags: billy tyne, capt, closest store, communications device, content creators, content development, edge device, entertainment communications, figure 3, forrester, george clooney, internet connectivity, leading edge, multimedia notebook, notebook system, perfect storm, service source, software content, two million, warner bros



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