How Much Dark Data Lurks in Your Company’s Shadows?

Does your business know how much of its data is valuable and used? According to IDG Research Services, not much of it is really used for anything. Only about 28 percent has any real value to it. This means that the majority of your stored and maintained data is going unused and taking up space and resources. This information is called "dark data."

The Dark Data Ages
Perhaps these numbers look familiar, and they represent your own business. You might be wondering why it's worth holding onto this data if it doesn't offer you any particular gains or benefits. The worst part is that you are paying to store and maintain this information when those resources could be used for other, more lucrative endeavors. According to Gartner, dark data is "the information organizations collect, process, and store during regular business activities, but generally fail to use for other purposes."

The reasons vary for keeping dark data around, but the general consensus is that it simply built up over time under the guise that there may (or may not) be a legitimate use for it. For example, there may be industry regulations which entail keeping records that are no longer relevant, like medical records in the healthcare field. Or perhaps your business hasn't deleted the information because you're under the impression that it might be needed for something. One example of such information is your company's network activity logs. Even if it is a good idea to keep the logs around in the event of a network issue, you don't need to store ten years of them. That just takes up too much unnecessary space.

Descent into Darkness
Data in the workplace is expected to only grow darker, mainly due to the growing trend in information mobility called the Internet of Things (IoT). This new trend is making organizations consider alternative data collection options which allow company servers to collect information from several different web-connected devices. Due to this influx of new data, the amount of space used to store this information will skyrocket. Of course, this data doesn't need to be stored for a long period of time; it only needs to be analyzed. Regardless, businesses still store this data for ages, simply due to a hunch that the information will be important someday.

In this information age, the Internet is straining to process and collect the surplus of data spilling out from all of its new sources. Internet service providers can't upgrade and expand their hardware fast enough to keep up with the new data influx. How much faster do you think the Internet would operate if every business around the globe were to get rid of all useless data? If 72 percent of the data on the Internet were to magically disappear, the web would perform exceedingly better.

Your network can also benefit from this concept. If you go through your system and get rid of all unused data, or any information that isn't necessary to your business's day-to-day operation, you might be surprised by how much faster your network can run.

Dark Data Leaves Nothing but Doom and Gloom in Your Budget
As it turns out, dark data can be detrimental to your business financially. It doesn't matter if you store your data on the cloud or in-house. It still costs money to maintain these systems, and that money is commensurate with how much data is being stored on them. Don't forget about the costs of powering these data-storage units, either, or the need for repair if they were to fail. Understanding how your systems are being utilized will help you keep your dark data costs to a minimum. According to Gartner, "organizations that fail to optimize the way they manage and retain their data will be forced to deal with constant increases in storage costs."

Take a Shot in the Dark
Of course, there is a much more difficult solution available to you, if you are serious about cutting down your dark data costs. You could go through all of your data and see just how much unused information you have gathered, but that can be tedious and time-consuming. If this sounds like the only resolution for your dark data dilemma, give Computerware a call before you begin your journey into the dark unknown. We can help you plan for a data-management project such as this.

Ridding yourself of dark data is only part of the battle. The other part is finding out how to prevent your systems from being saturated with dark data again in the future. What you need is a process that can analyze your incoming data and understand the useful from the useless. This can save you countless hours of manual data-assessment. Computerware can equip your business with the tools necessary to automate such a feat.

In fact, this solution is so new that not many businesses have learned how to take advantage of it. According to a survey conducted by IDG, only 10 percent of businesses have taken advantage of a completely automated data-analysis solution. That doesn't mean that they aren't interested in the idea, though. In fact, "77 percent of enterprises expressed interest in using a single platform solution that automatically manages data."

You can be one of the few who take advantage of an automated data-analysis solution from Computerware. We can streamline your operations and improve the speed of your network processing. Give us a call at (703) 821-8200 to minimize the amount of data leaving your business in the dark.