A Factoid from Dell Computer
July 13, 2010
“Dell: 90% of Data Is Never Read Again” appeared on PC Pro, a UK Web site. The article presented data from Dell Computer that asserted “90% of company data is written once and never read again.” The write up contains some azure chip stuff; for example:
It’s an odd statistic. How is that data measured? 90% of all documents? 90% of stored bytes? When they said “ever again” did they mean explicitly retrieved by name, or should we include free text searches in that statistic? How long an interval needs to pass before some piece of data is clearly identified as belonging to the 90%, so that steps can be taken to reflect its reduced importance?
Anyone hear about offline storage, near line storage, and online storage? Certainly not at Dell, an outfit trying to boost its storage revenues and its knowledge of what companies do with their data.
One of the challenges of enterprise search is to index information and deliver relevant results. Popularity based systems—like the method used in the original Google Search Appliance—don’t work in organizations. Google figured this out and adapted its system. Specialized vendors, including Index Engines, built their business around the fact that once data are archived no one knows what’s there or how to find it.
Modern search and content processing systems are tough to configure for many reasons. One of them is the fact that most information tucked on an organization’s computers is lost. Only a handful of systems deliver what an employee needs to make a business decision. That information is usually relatively recent data. The write up descends into the weeds of which storage systems are going to ring the journalists’ and consultants’ chimes.
The topic I wanted to see addressed was ignored: search, indexing cycles, relevance, and other trivial questions. Buying hardware is more important I suppose.
Stephen E Arnold, July 13, 2010
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