In a year that was unprecedented in many ways, we have witnessed big data growth like never before. Pressured by the pandemic, enterprises have generated and leveraged historic amounts of big data, amid a huge surge in processing demands. As a consequence, big data performance solutions and tools have taken center stage, as companies have rushed to process and understand their expanding data lakes.
What can we say about the impact of these trends in 2020? And what should be expected on this front in 2021? Let’s review.
Explore the Pepperdata 2020 Big Data Performance Report.
Reflecting on Big Data Growth in 2020
It’s been a busy year in the big data industry. Here are some of the notable big data in 2020 highlights:
- The pace of digital transformation within enterprises has accelerated. The pandemic accelerated the push toward the cloud for data centers. This has increased the critical importance of getting value from big data, with data accuracy and real-time availability becoming critical aspects of operations.
- Research reveals that data and analytics remain a priority for enterprises, despite the disruptions the pandemic brought. 53% of professionals refer to data and analytics tools and platforms as the “technology with the greatest game-changing potential over the next three years.”
- Kubernetes and the use of containers continue to grow as cloud transformation and cloud initiatives take off. However, just as we saw with Hadoop, Kubernetes is not turning out to be easy to deploy, optimize, or maintain. The advanced IT shops are making strides, but the average IT shop is still in the planning stage—and probably waiting for something easier than the current options.
- Big data performance solutions are becoming critical, as the volume and velocity of data increases every day. Alex Pierce, Pepperdata field engineer, believes the amount and speed of data generated is increasing faster than traditional IT assets can keep up with. “We’re literally running into this conundrum that, when you’re a big company, you can’t buy hardware and storage capacity fast enough.”
- Data in motion with real-time analysis has become an important part of many businesses. Fresher data allows companies to quickly identify and address problems, leading to more efficient processes and faster decision making.
Big Data Industry Predictions for 2021
Now that we’ve recapped big data in 2020, here are some possible trends that might dominate the big data industry next year:
- The big data growth will continue and probably get even faster. Enterprises will continue their migration to the cloud, within both hybrid and multi-cloud environments. However, it won’t be a full-fledged lift-and-shift to the cloud, as enterprises plan to continue employing a hybrid strategy. However, enterprises are at a critical point and need to rethink their data architecture along with their cloud strategy.
- The need to monitor and control cloud costs will grow exponentially. Hybrid cloud means a need for hybrid monitoring solutions will increasingly arise. Because of this, companies will soon demand cloud pricing models from all vendors who service cloud platforms.
- Data storage and temperature will become an increasingly large part of cloud spend. These two metrics will need to be considered along with memory and compute. There is too much at stake financially not to consider where and how you are storing your big data. Warm, cool, and cold big data storage should be part of your storage strategy.
- Big data growth will mean that more sophisticated analytical solutions for data-mining are required. Analytical resources will need better management, and tools answering this need will likely grow in abundance.
- Real-time analytics use cases will continue to grow as data is used in more business decisions in partnership with AI and ML approaches.
- More “data platforms” are likely to emerge, where users simply bring their data and SQL to vendors in search of a solution. In this, shops will be learning the lessons from Hadoop.
- A monitoring standard like Prometheus or Open Telemetry will gain traction through the course of 2021, as a result of industry-wide pressures.
Moving Forward
With everything that’s happened this year, it can feel like hubris to offer predictions on what the future holds! That said, we are hoping that next year won’t bring a once-in-a-century disruption. Assuming this is the case, then we feel these predictions are strong ones.
Through 2020, observing the impact of big data growth has been fascinating. Pepperdata customers are all striving to keep up, and we’re helping them every step of the way.
Start your free 30-day trial and find out how Pepperdata can help you manage your big data demands in 2021.