Big Data Retention and Cloud Computing: Retaining Data Long Term Is the "Other Side" of the Big Data Imperative, and Is Well Suited to Cloud Architecture

Big Data presents significant challenges and opportunities for cost control, compliance and business transformation in the new century. Online exchange eBay operates data warehouses nearing 10 petabytes of data storage. Bank of America, Wal-Mart Stores and Dell have likewise joined the "Petabyte club." Research firm IDC estimates that global data volumes are now in the zettabytes (1021 bytes) and in 2010 alone, the digital universe will grow by 1.2 zettabytes. While Google chief economist Hal Varian has quipped that the "Sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians", data analytics is only one side of the Big Data imperative.