Learning to Love Data Science

Chapter 3. Will Big Data Make IT Infrastructure Sexy Again?

Topline Summary

Despite healthy levels of skepticism over the “staying power” of big data (people never tired of asking me when big data would jump the shark and sink ingloriously into the pit of forgotten trends), the impact of big data has been inescapable across the information technology industry. Big data not only hasn’t died; it’s grown bigger and messier.

As a result, there’s been a surge in spending on new and improved infrastructure required for moving massive amounts of data from point A to point B at the fastest possible speed. There’s also been a push for newer kinds of computing systems that can collect, store, analyze, and present information at nearly real-time velocities.

This paper, written in the winter of 2014, countered then-popular notions that big data would have minimal impact on IT spending and that the big data trend itself would burn out quickly.

Moore’s Law Meets Supply and Demand

Love it or hate it, big data seems to be driving a renaissance in IT infrastructure spending. IDC, for example, estimates that worldwide spending for infrastructure hardware alone (servers, storage, PCs, tablets, and peripherals) will rise from $461 billion in 2013 to $468 billion in 2014. Gartner predicts that total IT spending will grow 3.1 percent in 2014, reaching $3.8 trillion, and forecasts “consistent 4 to 5 percent annual growth through 2017.” For a lot of people, the mere thought of all that additional ...