Data, Data Everywhere

This is a very interesting article that essentially highlights just how massive data warehouses are now, and how much bigger that they will get in the future.  Charles goes into how different companies are using data warehouses to store and analyze massive amounts of data, like how Walmart uses data from warehouses to determine how to set up their in store displays, how tv companies can use data from warehouses to determine what people are watching, etc.  Although using data warehouses is beyond the scope of many smaller businesses, the number of companies who use these warehouses is likely to grow in the next couple decades.  The end of the article also offers words of caution for companies using these warehouses- solid practices for managing stored data, properly indexed tables, and good data extraction, transformation and loading techniques are the keys to keeping 100 terabyte databases from getting out of control.

Questions

1. How safe do you think the data stored in massive warehouses is?

2. Do you think smaller companies will begin using data warehouses in the future if they become cheaper and easier to manage?

3. Do you think there are any situations where using data warehouses could actually become a disadvantage to a company?

http://www.informationweek.com/data-data-everywhere/d/d-id/1039328?page_number=1