How Data Gravity will Reshape Our World
The way enterprises create, use, deliver and store data will change sooner than you may think. Our 26-page cover story introduces you to the executives and companies managing the groundbreaking concept of data gravity.
Published in Issue 5 | December 2020
Data rules the world. In the first waves of computing, data was primarily created, stored and processed in centralized locations. The shift to a digital economy has however transformed the way that companies create and deliver customer value. Organizations are today faced with a growing number of locations, applications and sensors, all generating information.
The sheer volumes of data being created on a daily basis has led to a new phenomenon: data gravity, or the concept of data becoming so unwieldy that it starts to generate its own mass. This can be compared to the way that a planet exerts its own gravitational pull on nearby moons, other planets and stars. In the same way, large sets of data start to attract applications and services, and other large datasets. This gravitational pull of data impacts the very foundation of our connected world, which includes cloud computing, edge data centers, network latency and data delivery. The ability to move data while constantly creating and attracting more data will be crucial for future enterprises. How does one manage data gravity and the inevitable challenges? According to our two featured Digital Realty executives: Start by measuring.
In our cover story, Digital Realty’s Tony Bishop and Dave McCrory speak with InterGlobix Magazine’s Editorin-Chief Jasmine Bedi about the Data Gravity Index DGx™. Our deep dive into data gravity also includes perspectives from executives at Digital Realty’s key partners: AWS, NVIDIA, Zenlayer, Yellowbrick and industry analyst group, 451 Research.
PREPARING FOR A NEW (DIGITAL) REALITY
THE DATA EXPLOSION
DATA GRAVITY: THE NEW LAWS
DATA LIFECYCLE
A WATERSHED YEAR
ONE WORLD, ONE THEME: DATA GRAVITY
COMMUNITY OF PARTNERS
TONY BISHOP
SVP, Platform, Growth & Marketing, Digital Realty
As the global head of platform, growth and marketing at Digital Realty, Tony Bishop focuses on building and growing the leading global data center platform to best address data gravity and digital transformations for the company’s enterprise, service provider and hyperscale customers. Prior to Digital Realty, Bishop worked in senior leadership positions at Equinix, 451 Research and Morgan Stanley. He is a 2nd Degree Fellow at Infrastructure Masons and the author of “Next Generation Data Centers in Financial Services: Driving Extreme Efficiency and Effective Cost Savings.”
DAVE MCCRORY
VP, Growth & Global Head
of Insights & Analytics,
Digital Realty
Dave McCrory ran a data strategy and
consulting business before he joined
Digital Realty. Over the last 25 years,
McCrory led teams at GE Digital,
Basho Technologies, Warner Music
Group and others. He also co-founded
Hyper9 (acquired by SolarWinds)
and Surgient (acquired by Quest
Software). McCrory holds more than
nine technology patents in virtualization, cloud and systems management
and created the concept of data gravity.
AMAZON WEB
SERVICES (AWS)
In Conversation with
JOSHUA BURGIN
General Manager
AWS Outposts
Digital Realty launched Data Hub featuring AWS Outposts to remove data gravity barriers for enterprises by enabling them to rapidly deploy AWS infrastructure at centers of data exchange globally on PlatformDIGITAL®. AWS Outposts is a fully managed service that offers the same AWS infrastructure, AWS services, APIs and tools to the data center, colocation space, or on-premise facility for a consistent hybrid experience. The Data Hub for AWS Outposts solution provides critical infrastructure that enables enterprises to integrate public and private data sources and achieve data compliance and control.
NVIDIA
In Conversation with
TONY PAIKEDAY
Senior Director
AI Systems, NVIDIA
Digital Realty recently announced a collaboration with NVIDIA and Core Scientific to deploy the industry’s first Data Hub featuring NVIDIA DGX A100 systems at the Interxion Digital Docklands Campus in London. With access to a new AI-ready infrastructure solution, businesses can rapidly deploy AI models in close proximity to their data sets globally, opening up a new artificial intelligence platform-as-a-service (AI PaaS) solution developed specifically for data science teams.
ZENLAYER
In Conversation with
LAWRENCE LEE
VP, Partnerships and
Alliances, Zenlayer
Zenlayer and Digital Realty are working together to deliver Digital Realty Network Hub featuring Zenlayer Edge Cloud Services. Zenlayer’s complete edge network approach helps enterprises harness the value of PlatformDIGITAL® in Digital Realty data centers.
YELLOWBRICK DATA
In Conversation with
MARK CUSACK
CTO, Yellowbrick Data
Yellowbrick and Digital Realty bring a modern data warehouse through hybrid-IT to centers of data exchange with Data Hub featuring Yellowbrick Data Warehouse. Leveraging PlatformDIGITAL®, Yellowbrick offers an integrated hosted data warehouse solution offered as a service to its customers, accelerating their cloud-adoption strategies.
INSIGHTS
In Conversation with
ERIC HANSELMAN
Principal Research Analyst 451 Research
Eric Hanselman, Principal Research Analyst at 451 Research, which is a part of S&P Global Market Intelligence, explains why better access to data is critical for enterprises and how a better understanding of data gravity can help them extract value.