Newsblog

ARTICLE 1

Business Intelligence Strategy: A Utilities Company Case Study

Paul Hawking (Institute for Logistics and Supply Chain Management, College of Business, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia), Carmine Sellitto (Institute for Logistics and Supply Chain Management, College of Business, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia)

Undertaking a review of the literature is an important part of any research project. The researcher both maps and assesses the relevant intellectual territory in order to specify a research question which will further develop the knowledge base. However, traditional ‘narrative’ reviews frequently lack thoroughness, and in many cases are not undertaken as genuine pieces of investigatory science. Consequently they can lack a means for making sense of what the collection of studies is saying. These reviews can be biased by the researcher and often lack rigour.

In the past few years, Big Data has morphed from being yet another IT buzzword into a virtual tsunami sweeping over enterprises and consumers alike. Humans, organizations, devices, and machines of all types now contribute huge waves of data into what’s being called the data universe. And just like the other, real universe, the data universe continues to expand rapidly.  

How long will the data last in your hard-drive or USB stick? Five years? 10 years? Longer?

Already a storage company called Backblaze is running 25,000 hard drives simultaneously to get to the bottom of the question. As each hard drive coughs its last, the company replaces it and logs its lifespan.

While this census has only been running five years, the statistics show a 22% attrition rate over four years.

Some may last longer than a decade, the company says, others may last little more than a year; but the short answer is that storage devices don't last forever.