By far, the volume of data has to be the biggest challenge. Its
tremendous growth is creating major technical issues, as well as
legal implications.
@34169 A big part of the problem is identifying the unstructured
data in order to manage it. For example, if you're looking at
bitmap images, seismic data, audio or video, there is no way to
really identify the data other than the filename and extension --
there is no way to "look" at the data and know that a given piece
of data comprises an image or other data type. This makes essential
management tasks, like data identification,
classification, legal discovery and even
basic searches, very challenging for the enterprise. Just
consider your own home PC. We pack so much data onto our systems
that it eventually becomes a waste of time to even look for a
file, especially if we've forgotten the filename.
And with growth, there is also additional cost associated with
unstructured data. The inability to actually manage that data is
becoming costly in terms of wasted time, wasted storage capacity
and potential legal exposures if data cannot be located.
Listen to the
Unstructured data FAQ audiocast.
Go to the beginning of the
Unstructured Data FAQ Guide.
