The Virginia State Police department is constantly collecting data necessary for police officials, lawyers, judges, etc. Storage capacity is an ongoing problem for the department because crime never stops, thus increasing the volume of data that is being collected. Not only does the department store criminal records, but also Lt. Fagan of the Virginia State Police department wants to record every request for information about a specific case because in the criminal justice process, timing is everything. By increasing the amount of data being stored, the department needs to increase its amount of storage space. In an effort to update its storage infrastructure, avoiding a shortage of storage space, the Virginia State Police department is using new gear from Fujitsu that will enable the department to handle the estimated 11TB of data capacity.
An unmanageable amount of data has become a problem for many of these departments and industries, as data has proven to be just as important for the Virginia State Police department as it has for Fortune 1,000 companies. Without an advanced storage infrastructure, sorting data and extracting specific information becomes extremely difficult, ultimately making the data useless. It is important for industries, specifically those who do not have access to the most advanced resources, such as the Virginia State Police department, to continuously update their databases. Moreover, in an industry where the data being obtained can significantly help or hinder a judicial case, the timeliness and reliability is of the utmost importance.
The role of CIOs and IT managers, in addition to storage space, is another issue that this article addresses. The question is, how will this data explosion affect CIOs and other “technologists?” One study reported that the role of IT managers will expand, ultimately putting them at the right hand of the CEO. Unfortunately, the article “More Data? Get Used To It”[1] views this overwhelming amount of data as a crisis that will undermine IT’s reputation, not enhance it.
This article says that CIOs will be “running around with their hair on fire trying to keep up with the ever-increasing amount of information pouring into their shrinking corporate SANs.”[2] It is clear that while many types of companies will be benefitting from this data explosion, CIOs will be under the most pressure to strategize how this data will be handled. Different businesses use data in different ways, but the ultimate goal in all cases is finding a way to use the mass amount of data.
With the economy undergoing a major recession, it is quite possible that CIOs and IT managers’ roles in a company will significantly change. Thus, it is even more important for CIOs and IT managers to keep their companies afloat.
