It is clear that there is a need for data storage in the United States, as evidenced by its increased usage. In fact, the average daily data usage across the nation rose from 12 GB in March 2019 to 16.6 GB in 2020. This 38% increase was spread across every device category, and with good reason. Businesses are increasingly reliant on data usage, as well as strong and reliable internet access. Due to the fact that many businesses have been forced to have employees work remotely during the pandemic, it is virtually impossible for many of them to function properly without a reliable internet connection and a surplus of data capacity.
The question for many is how this data is being used and what a growing business should seek in its carrier services and internet access. With some experts referring to data as the “new oil”, its significance cannot be understated.
Is All Data Usable?
One question being explored by many business owners today is whether or not all of the data they are storing is usable. One type of unusable data stored by many businesses is known as dark data. Lots of businesses store dark data without fully realizing that they are doing so, though this tends to be more common overseas than it is in the United States. In part, this is an efficiency issue.
The issue with storing unusable data is that this certainly doesn’t strengthen a company’s internet access in any way and actually costs businesses money. Although the importance of data and data center services has grown since businesses have discovered more ways to use data, the cost of storing data has increased in turn. Therefore, storing unusable data is essentially equivalent to wasting money.
One of the reasons why some data is unusable is that businesses simply lack the tools to properly analyze the data. The data may lie in unstructured systems and therefore cannot be efficiently captured, analyzed, and used. Some data also simply isn’t of a high enough quality to be properly used.
What Can Make Unusable Data Usable?
While some unusable data may be beyond saving, some strategies offer the opportunity to harvest the potential in this dark data. Some businesses are actually training employees in data science techniques in order to maximize data usage. Others are actively hiring data experts to guide them in terms of how they can strengthen their internet access and get the most out of their data.
New software solutions also present exciting opportunities in terms of data usage. This could allow employees who know less about this field to more easily analyze large sets of data. Being able to easily analyze data would reduce the issue of dark data. This is perhaps one reason why some businesses are pushing more funding towards data-based projects.
Why Is Data Usage Increasing?
While there is an issue of unusable data to consider, the bigger problem is that this unusable data is taking up space that could be maximized by usable, high-quality data. As previously mentioned, it is clear that there has been an increase in data usage over the year. Let’s explore further why data usage is expanding so rapidly.
Machine learning is one major reason why data usage has increased so quickly. This requires the usage of more data and has become vital to a wide variety of businesses. Additionally, artificial intelligence is becoming more mainstream, requiring companies to use more data in order to keep up with this progression.
As businesses collect more data to cope with these demands, it’s important that the data collected is usable. Fortunately, there are tools and strategies being implemented to ensure that data is being used as efficiently as possible. Ideally, this will allow business owners to expand their companies rapidly and smoothly.
