In the publication Information Management, Shawn Rogers shares an intriguing list of Big Data deployments. While there are some common themes, there are no true blueprints yet for dealing with Big Data.  If you weren’t convinced of the size of real big data, see if these numbers will convince you:

• Facebook uses a Hadoop analytic data warehouse, using HDFS to store more than 30 petabytes of data. Their Big Data stack is based only on open source solutions.
• Yahoo! has 100,000 CPUs in 40,000 computers, all running Hadoop. Also running a 12 terabyte MOLAP cube based on Tableau Software
• eBay has 3 separate analytics environments:
  • 6PB data warehouse for structured data and SQL access
  • 40PB deep analytics (Teradata)
  • 20PB Hadoop system to support advanced analytic workload on unstructured data

All of this information of course brings with it not only tremendous insights, it also brings litigation headaches, an opportunity for data breach, and a large energy load.  IT specialists continue to struggle with the new normal as they move toward containing growing data stores.

This month eBay announced it is taking its commitment to clean energy to a new level with the announcement that its data center in Utah will run entirely on clean energy. The company will only use the local electrical grid as an emergency backup power source. eBay has partnered with Bloom Energy to install a 6 megawatt fuel cell installation on site at the data center. When it is completed in mid-2013, it will be the largest non-utility fuel cell installation in the nation.

The new Bloom Energy project will be eBay’s fifth and largest renewable energy installation. eBay operates a 650 kilowatt (kW) solar array and a 500 kW Bloom fuel cell installation at its San Jose headquarters, as well as a 100 kW solar array at its Denver data center. In April of this year, the company installed a 665 kW solar array spanning 72,000 square feet atop its existing, LEED®certified Utah data center.

The latest announcement from eBay is noteworthy for a couple of reasons. First, it is the latest in a series of announcements from major corporations to lower energy usage in their data centers.  Companies are viewing data center efficiencies as both low hanging fruit and key to global success.  Secondly, using green energy is just one of multiple strategies available to reduce a data center’s energy usage. For example, there are new storage devices that use less energy and require less cooling, and there is a solution called ePurge that reduces the obsolete and redundant information on shared drives by as much as 40%.

Here at Cadence Group we applaud eBay’s efforts but also are left with the nagging question of where data clean up falls in an organization’s strategic plan to manage their growing stores of information.  Green is great, but rather than become a nation of data hoarders, wouldn’t cleaning up data stores be a critical step in eliminating unnecessary energy usage for any organization?  Tell us what you think!

Cadence Group offers a unique solution to your information management overload that can help you cleanup your stored data AND eliminate unnecessary energy usage.  Click HERE for more information about e-Purge, our green-friendly records and information management tool.

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