The amount of data produced annually in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) will grow from 249 exabytes in 2014 to 1,835 exabytes by 2020, an increase of over 600 per cent, a new study revealed by EMC Corporation said.
In 2013, 60 per cent of data in the digital universe is attributed to mature markets such as Germany, Japan, and the US, but emerging markets including the Middle East and North Africa, Brazil, China, India, Mexico and Russia will surpass the mature markets by 2017. The Mena region alone will rise from 3.8 per cent of the worldwide digital universe to 4.2 per cent in 2020.
“The Digital Universe Study clearly highlights that the region continues to lead data growth contributing to 3.8 per cent of the digital universe driven by the aggressive penetration of social platforms and mobility in addition to heavy penetration of video surveillance across key verticals like oil & gas, aviation, hospitality, retail and finance in addition to the many ambitious smart city initiatives in play all across the region,” said Mohammad Ameen, Senior Vice-President and Regional Manager, Turkey, Eastern Europe, Africa, and Middle East, EMC Corporation .
He said that enterprises today are looking for solutions that help them go beyond the collation and storage of all this data to identify “high value” data and extract insights from it to fuel business growth and competitive advantage.
Existing infrastructure
The potential to maximise business value from these projects is “massive and requires IT departments to innovate and find new ways to leverage existing infrastructure to effectively leverage the Internet of Things and dive into a future of third platform computing,” he said.
The billions of connected devices equipped with unique identifiers and the ability to automatically record, report and receive data, currently represent two per cent of the Mena’s data and is expected to contribute to over eight per cent of the Mena data by 2020 creating new sources of value for businesses in the region.
Regarding security, Ameen said that only 47 per cent of the data being generated in the region is protected, a massive 53 per cent still needs to be secured.
“This points to a grave concern for the future as the amount of information continues to amplify, it opens more doors for cyber criminals to exploit mounds of increasingly vulnerable information assets,” he said.
According to analysts, organisations in the region now need to take steady steps to identify and define “useful data” or data that could be analysed — in the digital universe.
In 2013, only 22 per cent of the information in the worldwide digital universe was considered useful data, but less than five per cent of the useful data was actually analysed — leaving a massive amount of data lost as dark matter in the digital universe.
By 2020, more than 35 per cent of all data in the world could be considered useful data, thanks to the growth of data from the Internet of Things, but it will be up to businesses to put this data to use.
“As sensors become connected to the internet, the data they generate becomes increasingly important to every aspect of business, transforming old industries into new relevant entities,” said Vernon Turner, senior vice-president at research firm International Data Corporation.
He said the enormous explosion of information creates immense opportunities for businesses everywhere and the companies that succeed in the future are the ones who successfully identify the “right sources of data and extract relevant value from this data” for their business and its stakeholders.
