NewVantage recently surveyed a range of data professionals at large enterprises, and reached a somewhat ironic conclusion:
Big Data has very little to do with "big volume" at most companies. Instead, the ability to ingest a variety of data sources, including streaming data, drives Big Data projects:
Looking at the results, a mere 28% of enterprises today see volume of data as a primary driver for their Big Data projects, falling to 25% in three years. Instead, a whopping 64% are motivated by the need to analyze streaming data, analyze new data types, or analyze data from diverse sources. That number rises to 68% in three years.
And those analyzing data sets under 1 terabyte? They equal the number of companies analyzing data sets in excess of 1 petabyte.
Big Data may well be the most inaptly named technology trend in a long, long time.