Unstructured data ‘out of control’: survey
Joe McKendrick writes:
Many organizations are becoming overwhelmed with the volumes of unstructured information — audio, video, graphics, social media messages — that falls outside the purview of their “traditional” databases. Organizations that do get their arms around this data will gain significant competitive edge.
As part of my work with Unisphere Research, a division of Information Today, Inc., I helped conduct a new survey that finds unstructured data is growing at a faster clip than relational data — driving the “Big Data” explosion. Thirty-five percent of respondents say unstructured information has already surpassed or will surpass the volume of traditional relational data in the next 36 months. Sixty-two percent say this is inevitable within the next decade. The survey gathered input from 446 data managers and professionals who are readers of Database Trends and Applications magazine, and was underwritten by MarkLogic.
A majority of survey respondents acknowledge that unstructured information is growing out of control and is driving the big data explosion – 91% say unstructured information already lives in their organizations, but many aren’t sure what to do about it.
I mention this survey because unstructured data has few contenders for the attribution, discovery, extraction of semantics and topic maps may find less competition from traditional solutions.