Kevin's Watch

Digital Universe Infinite

Just how big is the digital universe? About 161 billion gigabytes and growing fast, according to new research.

EMC Corporation, an information infrastructure solutions business, said the research it sponsored found that "the 2006 digital universe was 161 billion gigabytes, or 161 exabytes, in size" and a six-fold growth to 988 exabytes was predicted by 2010.

"This digital universe equals approximately three million times the information in all the books ever written - or the equivalent of 12 stacks of books, each extending more than 93 million miles from the earth to the sun," said EMC.

"It represents an entire shift in how information has moved from analogue form, where it was finite, to digital form, where it's infinite," said chief research officer and senior vice-president of IDC, John Gantz. IDC did the research.

"While nearly 70% of the digital universe will be generated by individuals by 2010, most of this content will be touched by an organisation along the way - on a network, in a data centre, at a hosting site, at a telephone or internet switch, or in a backup system.

Organisations in control

"Organisations - including businesses of all sizes, agencies, governments and associations - will be responsible for the security, privacy, reliability and compliance of at least 85 percent of the information," said EMC.

"This ever-growing mass of information is putting a considerable strain on the IT infrastructures we have in place today," said CEO of EMC South Africa Frank Touwen.

He said it would change the way organisations and IT professionals worked and the way consumers used information.

Most of the digital information is images, captured by more than one billion devices around the world, including digital cameras and cellphones.

The information includes e-mails generated from 1.6 billion e-mail boxes last year and 1.1 billion internet users.