Only 15% Is Classified as Business Critical Information; Data Overload Could Cost Organizations up to $3.3 Trillion Cumulatively by 2020
Mountain View, CA – March 15, 2016 – Veritas Technologies, the global leader in information management, today released the results of its Global Databerg Report. The survey reveals that 52% of all information currently stored and processed by organizations around the world is considered ‘dark’ data, whose value is unknown. Additionally, another 33% of data is considered redundant, obsolete, or trivial (ROT) and is known to be useless. If left untamed, business data will unnecessarily cost organizations around the world a cumulative $3.3 trillion to manage by the year 2020.
Organizations are creating and storing data at an ever-increasing rate due to a ‘data hoarding’ culture and an indifferent attitude to retention policy. This data could be anything from valuable business information to non-compliant information. The report reveals that IT leaders consider just 15% of all stored data to be classified as business critical information. For the average midsized organization holding 1000TB of data, the cost to store their non-critical information is estimated at more than $650,000 annually.
“Understanding and acknowledging that a data hoarding culture exists is a first step in addressing the problem,” said Ben Gibson, Chief Marketing Officer of Veritas. “More and more organizations are realizing it. The problem most face is they do not know what data to start with, what risk it may contain and where the value is discovered. Once they have visibility into that environment, they can make decisions faster, with more confidence, and bring in other business stakeholders to move forward with a well-conceived plan.”
The Veritas Global Databerg Report provides insights from over 2500 IT professionals in 22 countries. It follows the company’s introduction of the Data Genomics Index, the industry’s first accurate view of the composition of enterprise data based on analysis of billions of files. The Data Genomics Index found that over 40% of stored data has not been touched in over three years, and is considered ‘stale.’ The Global Databerg Report confirms that IT leaders are aware of this problem. These two industry-first studies marry employee perspective with file system reality and hopefully together, they can be a catalyst for organizations to finally address the crippling data growth dynamic they are experiencing.
The Vast Majority of Business Data Sits Below the Waterline
Around the world, the Global Databerg Report found that on average 52% of all stored data is dark. Dark data could either be redundant, obsolete or trivial (ROT) or valuable clean business data. The worst dark data offenders are Germany, Canada and Australia with respectively 66%, 64% and 62% of their stored data defined as dark, leaving the US in a mid-range position with 54% of their data being unknown. The highest proportion of clean and identified business critical data was found in China (25% clean), Israel (24% clean) and Brazil (22 % clean). But this still means that more than 75% of all data they are storing is dark or has no value for the business.
A Fear of the Delete Key
ROT data has already been identified by organizations as redundant, obsolete or trivial and provides little or nobusiness value. But still 48% of all stored data in Denmark, 44 % in the Netherlands and 43 % of all data in theUnited Arab Emirates (43%) belongs to this category. In the USA 30% is ROT data.
The Race to the Cloud is Feeding the Databerg
Cloud adoption and processing is set to increase by more than a third during 2016 to 46% from 33%, with Brazil and USA leading with an average of 61% of data predicted to be in the cloud by the end of the year. Although the short term driver is to reduce cost, there is increasing concern over lock-in costs in the future – pushing data to the cloud can just move the problem further away, adding to the dark, and unclassified dark data.
Consumerization of IT Has Blurred the Lines for Employees
Hitching a ride on corporate IT means businesses pay to store data that has no business value to them. On average, 26.5% of employees store personal data on their work devices. Because so much is dark, IT cannot tell which data has business value and which is just ‘cat videos.’
More Personal Data Than Ever Exists on Corporate Networks
Not understanding what is being stored on corporate resources is very risky and leaves no ‘plausible denials’ in
the event of regulatory or criminal investigation. Over 25% of employees store personal data on work devicesranging from personal, legal and identification documents (57%), photos (57%), music (47%) down to video(33%) and games (26%). It may seem innocent at first, but many of these documents may trigger new dataprivacy rules in regional jurisdictions or potential copyright issues.
The Global Databerg Report is a large global independent survey covering 2,550 senior IT decision makersacross 22 countries. The study, conducted for Veritas by research firm Vanson Bourne, looks at howorganizations across the globe (including the Americas, Europe, Middle East, and Asia Pacific) store andmanage their data, highlighting attitudes and behaviors that are fueling an unprecedented data explosion.
Please download the Veritas Global Databerg Report for more information.
About Veritas Technologies
Veritas Technologies enables organizations to harness the power of their information, with informationmanagement solutions serving the world’s largest and most complex environments. Veritas works withorganizations of all sizes, including 86 percent of global Fortune 500 companies, improving data availability andrevealing insights to drive competitive advantage. www.veritas.com
Veritas and the Veritas logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Veritas Technologies LLC or itsaffiliates in the U.S. and other countries. © 2016 Veritas Technologies. All rights reserved.
Contact:
Veritas Technologies
Raphel Finelli
408-309-8348
raphel.finelli@veritas.com
Edelman for Veritas
Noah Banning
206-664-8618
noah.banning@edelman.com