'DataGeddon' and Data Center Location

Lisa Rhodes is Vice President of Marketing and Sales for Verne Global.

Most of the world’s data has been created in the past few years, and thanks to the proliferation of IoT and Big Data, there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. Some even refer to this phenomenon as “DataGeddon”. So, what exactly is DataGeddon? It can simply be described as the sheer volume of data being collected, managed and stored. There is a direct correlation between companies’ tailored communications campaigns to loyal consumers and the amount of data generated.

Companies have audiences that trust them, and these companies must create content that triggers an emotional response to act, purchase or consume. Consumers start to show greater brand loyalty because the company knows more about their preferences and tailors their communications accordingly. For someone who is interested in the brands they purchase having a social and/or environmental benefit, they will likely want all the information they can get to support not only the brand, but also the social causes it represents.

Companies need to consider where this data is going to be stored and the necessary infrastructure that has to be in place to support it. This is becoming a critical business decision as the offices of the CIO, CMO and data scientists merge together. As companies move toward a more connected and interactive experience for their customers, these devices must have access to a large amount of servers that provide the necessary processing and data.

At the heart of this lies the data center where all of this content is stored and processed. However, data centers require a substantial amount of power that is not cheap or always readily available and reliable. A recent report showed that in 2013, U.S. data centers consumed an estimated 91 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity—enough to power all the households in NYC twice over—and we’re on track to reach 140 billion kilowatt hours by 2020. For this reason, companies are looking for more creative solutions to address their growing storage needs, such as moving their data centers to Nordic locations that provide a reliable power grid, renewable energy, cool climate and high-speed networks.

With companies continuing to generate more and more data as they aim to create a customized experience for their customer’s, the significance of how and where their data is stored has become a key topic for not only companies, but their customers as well. Executives are seeing the need to be more creative and moving forward, as they question how they can combat the threat of “DataGeddon,” the old adage of “location, location, location” might just be part of the answer.

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