YouTube (News - Alert) has 60 hours of new video data uploaded every minute. There are over 700,000 messages being delivered on Facebook every minute and 175,000 tweets are sent on Twitter (News - Alert) every 60 seconds.  That’s a lot of data, but it doesn’t even account for the majority of the world’s data. In fact, 90 percent of the world’s data was created in the last two years alone. It’s no wonder they call this phenomenon “Big Data.” 

In the simplest terms, the phrase refers to the tools, processes and procedures allowing an organization to create, manipulate, and manage very large data sets and storage facilities. Data is generated from almost everything we do these days; on one device, we can get turn-by-turn directions, post to social media, take videos, play games, shop online and much more.

“Just to give you a sense of that volume,” says Ariella Sumits, a senior analyst at Cisco (News - Alert), “if you look at the total amount of traffic that has crossed IP networks globally to date, since 1984, it’s about 1.2 zetabytes. So, in 2016, the amount of traffic that crossed networks just in that year will exceed everything that’s crossed the networks to date.” 

XS International, a provider of alternative IT maintenance solutions, explores why Cisco is so stuck on the buzz words, “Big Data.”

Image via XS International.

Cisco believes that big data will not only be able to help companies, but entire industries. The problem for most companies is they are not equipped to deal with the data effectively; data is coming in faster than the technology or the knowledge to analyze it. And when data is locked inside any individual company’s database, the entire industry suffers.

Cisco’s idea is to create vast data repositories, like a central data dumping ground. It believes the creation of these repositories would spawn innovation across entire ecosystems, and it envisions large companies or infomediaries that would create easy access to data and resources, where analyses can be conducted and acted upon in real-time. 

The term infomediary was coined by John Hagel in his 1996 article entitled "The Coming Battle for Customer Information" in the Harvard Business Review.  The concept was formed from a combination of the words information and intermediary, where an infomediary is a website or company that gathers and organizes large amounts of data and acts as an intermediary between those who want the information and those who supply the information.

Cisco is getting ready to release to the public a new whitepaper called “Unlocking Value in the Fragmented World of Big Data Analytics: How Information Infomediaries Will Create a New Data Ecosystem.”  In the white paper, Cisco will address the solution of Infomediaries who will take care of the heavy lifting of aggregating, standardizing, packaging, securing and processing data from a variety of sources. It’s much like what is already in place for big industries like credit card processing and banking, where infomediaries provide centralized services to everyone in the industry. 

So, why the big push for big data ecosystems by Cisco? These Information Infomediaries will need high-powered, lightning-fast networks to process all the big data in real-time. That’s where Cisco’s got skin in the game. In fact, the network is in some ways what provides the most value to Cisco’s proposition given the fast-growing collection of data marketplaces and cloud-based big data services that already make it easier to access resources and analyze data sets. 

Cisco recently announced Cisco Algorithm Boost or Algo Boost technology, a groundbreaking networking innovation with numerous patents pending that offers the highest speed, visibility and monitoring capabilities in the networking industry. Ideal for high performance trading, big data and high performance computing environments, the new technology offers network access performance as low at 190 nanoseconds, more than 60 percent faster than other full featured Ethernet switches.

Merril Lynch estimates that big data is a $100 billion market opportunity, and the growing area is generating incredible buzz from academics and business leaders alike.  If Cisco gets its way, it could very well be through Cisco hardware and services that these infomediaries operate and centralized services are processed. 

Find out more about how XSi can help you with all your Cisco hardware and Cisco Maintenance needs.  XS International’s alternative to Cisco’s SMARTnet maintenance contract offers contract flexibilities, simple contract management, payment flexibilities and hardware and software support beyond Cisco End-of-Life or End-of-Service.

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