INTELLIGENT
GREEN TECHNOLOGY
Dark data to waste up to 5.8m
tonnes of carbon dioxide this year
D
igitisation can be part of the
solution to climate change
but storing digital data that is
never used can also consume an enormous
amount of energy and as a result produce
CO 2
that need never have been wasted.
Veritas estimates that 5.8 million tonnes
of CO 2
will be unnecessarily pumped into
the atmosphere as a result of powering the
storage of this kind of data this year alone. In
order to protect the planet from this waste,
businesses need to get on top of their data
management strategies, use the right tools
to identify which data is valuable and rid
their data centres of ‘dark data’.
On average 52% of all data stored by
organisations worldwide is ‘dark’ as those
responsible for managing it don’t have
any idea about its content or value. In the
UAE, dark data stands at around 47%,
according to the 2019 Veritas Middle East
Databerg Report. Much has been said
about the financial cost of dark data but
the environmental cost has, so far, often
been overlooked. Analysts predict that the
amount of data that the world will be storing
will grow from 33ZB in 2018 to 175ZB by
2025. This implies that, unless people change
their habits, there will be 91ZB of dark data
in five years’ time – over four times the
volume we have today, with all the energy
associated with powering the infrastructure
in which it lives.
Johnny Karam, Regional Vice President,
Emerging Region at Veritas Technologies,
explains: “The UAE has been a pioneer in
the implementation of programmes and
initiatives that contribute to reducing its
carbon footprint in pursuit of a greener
future. The nation is also leading the charge
when it comes to Digital Transformation
across the region, with the efficient
utilisation of data being a key catalyst.
However, as data volumes increase every
year, solving the problem of dark data needs
to be considered a top priority. The dark
data we store as businesses and individuals
is producing high amounts of carbon dioxide,
especially in large economies that have
excelled in their Digital Transformation.
It’s clear that this is an issue that everyone
needs to start taking really seriously.
“This is both a global and a local issue.
Last year, we released the third edition of our
Middle East Databerg Report, which revealed
that UAE businesses surveyed were failing
to manage their dark and ROT data, with
only 12% of the data stored by organisations
reported to be clean – the rest being ROT
(redundant, outdated, trivial information) and
unclassified data. The good news is that the IT
industry has a unique chance to get ahead of
this challenge. By taking steps to understand
our data better, implementing policies to
filter dark data and deleting the information
that’s simply not needed, we can help reduce
spiraling emissions.
“While this needs to become a moral
imperative for businesses everywhere, we
as individuals also have a key role to play
here. By simply managing the thousands of
videos and photos that we’ll never look at,
or emails that we’ll never read, we will each
be playing our part to reduce our impact on
the environment. Businesses and consumers
everywhere need to learn how to manage
their data for the sake of the planet.” •
INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS
INTELLIGENT
TECH CHANNELS Issue 29
45