Per Gartner “By 2022, 60% of enterprise IT infrastructure will focus on centres of data, rather than traditional data centres.” Further, the analyst says: “the role of I&O in the future will be to manage the global infrastructure and its associated services, moving away from only hardware and software. The result will be an environment focused on enabling the rapid deployment of business services and deploying workloads to the right locations.”
The Data Gravity Index measures the creation, aggregation and private exchange of enterprise data and examines its impact on the Forbes Global 2000.
Principal research analyst Eric Hanselman at 451 Research points to the looming impact of data gravity and the necessary context the "Data Gravity Index" provides.
"Data gravity is the idea that data is an anchor that is often hard to move, especially as data volumes grow. If that growth takes place in public or private clouds that are not easily accessible by the enterprise using them, the full value of that data can't be realized, and the enterprise will be trapped into spending exorbitant sums to free it," he explained.
Tony Bishop, SVP, Platform, Growth and Marketing at Digital Realty noted that as businesses undergo the rapid pace of digital transformation, understanding the impact of data gravity intensity will be a fundamental requirement for both enterprises and service providers to unlock data-driven opportunities.
Data gravity is an impediment to enterprise growth that will affect businesses across industries around the world. “Unchecked, data gravity can lead to limited innovation, poor customer and employee experiences, increased costs, information silos, compliance issues, security concerns and slow decision-making for the enterprise,” he added.
The 'Data Gravity Index' provides quantitative insight to help customers understand the dynamics of data gravity and turn it into a data-centric opportunity for their business.
Industry findings:
- The industries expected to experience the greatest data gravity intensity include the banking and financial services, manufacturing and insurance industries, all of which are expected to undergo rapid growth in digital acceleration, digital-enabled interactions and data exchange volumes globally.
- Data gravity intensity for banking and financial services firms will be exacerbated by regional growth in key banking and financial hubs.
- Large manufacturers are expanding their data and analytics capabilities, driven by the growth of in-home consumption.
- The insurance industry is expected to see data gravity intensify as digital-enabled interactions continue to increase in importance while key metros experience rapid growth in the volume of enterprise data exchange.
