When somebody suggested that I write a post on why I blog, my first question was: "can I be honest?" (I could almost see people cringe when I asked the question.)
But, I believe that it is only honest to share with others not only what the rewards are, but what the risks are too. Because if somebody were to start blogging without an appreciation for both, they might be in for some pretty unfunny surprises. Because if blogging is all about having an impact—sharing your perspectives, opinions and experiences—then it seems like sometimes those impacts wont always be positive.
Let me say right away that, overall, blogging has been and is a very positive experience from my perspective. But there have also been hard parts. Blogging is done by passionate people (it has been said many times that none of us here at EMC gets paid to blog—it is always something we choose to do, with the superabundance of free time that we have!). And typically blogs are read by passionate people, people that care about the subject matter, and people that have opinions of their own. That don’t always agree with you.
Over the last little while, we have become used to seeing discussions of data and storage for Big Data. As if Big Data possesses a unique set of challenges around the acquisition, management, replication, and protection of the data. And so it does.
For now.
Because after reviewing the latest set of statistics from the 2011 Digital Universe study it is clear that the challenges (or "opportunities" as Chuck put it on a recent call) faced by Big Data users today are going to be the same challenges that most enterprise IT shops are going to have face in the years to come.
Because there won't be Big Data and everybody else, there will be Big Data and Really Big Data.
So for the long term thinkers in the backup and recovery community, I think there is some value in paying attention to the problems that Big Data users face with respect to the backup and recovery of their data sets, because their solutions and their answers are likely to shape enterprise data protection in the years to come.
The opinions expressed here are my personal opinions. Content published here is not read or approved in advance by EMC and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of EMC nor does it constitute any official communication of EMC.
