Exploding Digital Universe in India

Over the next decade (2010 to 2020), digital information in India will grow from 40,000 petabytes (1,024 terabytes make one petabyte) to 2.3 million petabytes, twice as fast as the worldwide rate. EMC Corporation reveals this findings of the IDC Digital Universe Study titled "The Digital Universe in India” and its key initiatives to address customer challenges associated with the digital information deluge.

According to the IDC study, the share of India's digital information is expected to grow 60-fold by 2020, thanks to drivers such as digitization of TV network, 3G/BWA network, increased adoption of IT by small and medium businesses and individuals, and ambitious government initiatives such as Unique ID project.

Today in India both enterprise and individuals are generating huge amount of digital information from various sources including cameras, camcorder, digital TV, phones, surveillance devices, sharing and downloading of movies, scanners, etc. At 40,000 petabytes, the current level, India's digital information will be equivalent of information stored in 2.5 billion fully-loaded 16 GB iPads. If these iPads were to be stacked flat one on top of the other, it would make 4.6 lakh separate towers, each as high as the Qutub Minar! And if the 2.5 billion iPads were laid end-to-end, they would be equal to a continuous line of more than 197 million Tata Nano cars. However, 'this digital explosion will pose significant challenges for CIO and IT managers for two reasons,' Manoj Chugh, President, EMC India and SAARC, said at a conference. First, enterprises have responsibility for the storage, protection and management of 80 percent of the

Digital Universe's data, and this liability will only increase as social networking and Web 2.0 technologies continue to impact the enterprise. Second, while digital information will grow 60-fold, enterprise investments in IT and staffing will grow only in single digits. The cumulative effect is driving CIOs to transform traditional infrastructures into private cloud data centers that offer internal and external customers IT as a service.

'The digital information deluge reinforces India's emergence as a knowledge economy and this will translate into a significant market opportunity in India over the next decade,' he further added.

The huge gap, mismatch

The EMC study reveals a growing mismatch between the digital information being created and the availability of storage capacity in the country. Today in India we are creating 50% more information than the capacity that exists to store them. This number will grow to 80 percent over the next decade, Chug added. Even though the digital information is set to grow 60-fold, enterprise investments in IT and staffing is projected to grow only in single digits. 'The cumulative effect is driving CIOs to transform traditional infrastructures into private 'cloud' data centers that offer internal and external customers, IT as a service,' he said.