Leading Edge Forum Report 2005 - Extreme Data: Rethinking the "I" in IT

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CSC's Leading Edge Forum

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Extreme data — new data generated by new devices and used in new ways — are changing the rules of business, says a new report issued by CSC's Leading Edge Forum.

An era of extreme data is on the rise, driven by an explosion of new types of data generated by new devices and used in completely new ways, says the 2005 Leading Edge Forum Report, Extreme Data: Rethinking the "I" in IT.

Extreme data creates a new world for IT organizations, enabling new business processes, interpersonal connections and knowledge. "In this world, organizations need to understand and leverage their data opportunities, putting information to work for them like never before," says the report, an annual look at technology and trends that define the business world.

Data today looks nothing like it used to look. Organizations' data used to be centralized, sanitized and authorized. It was structured and well defined. Now, the report says, data has broken free. Data is mobile, operating freely outside corporate boundaries. It is messy, informal and unstructured, coming in many shapes and sizes: documents, text messages, pictures, voice snippets, and video clips.

Extreme data is blurring the lines between consumer and corporate technology. Data from consumer applications, such as instant messaging, voice-over-IP and MP3s, is working its way into the corporate information technology infrastructure. The "I" in IT is changing.

The volume of data has exploded as organizations cope with multiplying documents, presentation slides, e-mails and instant messages. In 2002, for example, enough data was created to fill 500,000 libraries the size of the Library of Congress print collections. Some say all this data is not necessarily a good thing—that it's more data than we can digest and put to use, and poses security and privacy issues for organizations.

The world of extreme data is one of productivity, innovation, convenience and communication," Extreme Data says. "The "I" in IT has been redefined as a broad swath of data that runs wide and deep." The report examines four dimensions of extreme data, to be detailed in this and three subsequent features on csc.com: data everywhere, time and place, social connections and meaning. These dimensions make today's data different from bits that have come before and challenge organizations to explore the extreme side of data.

Please download the full report (PDF file, 3,25MB).