Think about Data Volume in Vs of Data

If you are working and learning about data, pretty much sure that you have come across Vs for properties of data. Some are saying it is 3Vs and for some, it is 4Vs or 5 Vs. Here is an image that shows the 10Vs of properties data. 

Let us stop arguing what is the actual number of Vs and let me share an interesting story on Volume, one V which no one will dispute. 

When I started my career as an implementation officer way back in 25 years ago things were a little different from what you have today. I was working for a software development company that was supporting multiple clients around the country that consists of hotels, plantations, factories etc.  Every year, I have a job to do. Once the accounts year ended or coming close to an end, these systems do not have enough disk space for the next year. So I have to visit every client's place as there is no remote connectivity support. Then I will print all the detailed reports that will take hours and hours and file them. Then take backups of the existing data and delete data so that next year's work can start.

Now think about data analysis. As you imagine nothing much of analysis can be done with one year's of data. At that time we were boasting about our reports that have the ability to compare revenue or expenses of this month to last month. 25 years ago that is surely a cracking feature to have. However, one of our clients who happens to be a Hotel said, there is no point in comparing this month to last month. In the case of the hotel, it is a seasonal business so they need to compare this month's values with last year's same month not last month. Our systems are not designed to accommodate two years of data, so we had to redesign our system.

On the other hand, our office server hard disk was upgraded to 1 GB. No, it is not a typo and you read it correctly, it is 1 GB.

Comparison of 1 GB now and Then

These stories tell you how precious was the storage back then. With that IT systems are more used for operational activities rather than analytical activities. Increase in the storage technologies has paved the way for different types of analytics such as Diagnostics, Predictive and Prescriptive. The above picture tells us a story of thousand words on how the storage technogies have increased over the years.