Forget big data, 'small data' is going to be 100 times harder to tackle - EMC

Head of EMC's core technologies division says Internet of Things and driverless cars will create 'small data sprawl'

The launch of driverless cars and the rise in adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) devices will not be a big data problem but a "small data" issue, according to Guy Churchward, head of EMC's core technologies division.

"What you have [with billions of internet-connected devices and millions of driverless cars] is not big data, it is actually ‘small data' - because what it is, is billions and billions of small data objects," he said.

Churchward told The Economic Times that EMC was working on solving the "small data" issue, which he believes could create a headache for IT leaders that are dealing with security and storage management.

He said that driverless cars (like the Audi A7, pictured) will generate data that will tend to be distributed, leading to a "small data sprawl", making the challenge 100 times more difficult than that of big data.

He believes that security, storage, management and application would have to be completely different to those solutions that currently exist, when the world is filled with billions of internet-connected devices. He claimed that none of the tools and applications that are currently available in the market will work in such an environment.

EMC is using some of its $2.3bn research and development budget to address this small data problem - but it believes that this is a long-term project that could take between three and five years to start making a difference.

The IoT and connected devices are not only providing challenges to enterprises from a technology perspective. According to Edith Ramirez, the chairwoman of the United States Federal Trade Commission, IoT could pose huge risks to privacy and security, and could allow businesses to paint a "deeply personal" picture of every consumer.

Ramirez voiced her concerns during a speech at CES 2015 in Las Vegas, and she said the best way to tackle the issue was for companies "to prioritise security and build security into their devices from the outset".

According to a study conducted by analyst Forrester and commissioned by barcode printing and RFID technology provider Zebra Technologies, the UK is leading the way in the adoption of IoT solutions, with more than 60 per cent of UK firms surveyed having deployed IoT tools.