The more data in one place, the more data it attracts.
This “data gravity” is a familiar function for enterprises, even if the term isn’t. As the number of applications hosted on local servers increases, so too does the amount of data necessary for them to operate. Add more data and more applications are required to manage this data. Over time, the cycle repeats again and again as data gravity builds.
Now, this gravity is shifting to the cloud. With companies making the move to cloud storage, analytics and compute services, the volume of data — and its commensurate gravity — is on the rise. But are the very same clouds designed to boost performance at risk of becoming data black holes?
What is Data Gravity?
Coined in 2010 by Dave McCrory, data gravity is an analog for its physical counterpart.
In the world around us, large objects attract smaller masses. It’s why we don’t fly off the Earth and why the Earth rotates around the sun. Moving large objects away from a center of mass is difficult — this is why sending shuttles into space requires thousands and thousands of tons of rocket fuel to break free from our planet’s gravitational pull.
In the digital world, data gravity refers to the tendency of large data “masses” to attract and retain more data. For example, if a company uses a cloud-based ERP system, this system naturally attracts data related to customer histories, transaction details and key business operations. These data types are themselves governed by applications such as CRM solutions or eCommerce portals, which are carried along toward the data center. These applications also come ..
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