Machine learning, underpinned by massive volumes of data, and the cognitive systems they enable will be key to business in the future, says data management company CommVault Europe, Middle East and Africa senior marketing director Nigel Williams.

Whether it is computational fluid dynamics or accounting, data is at the core. However, using data is expected to become more complicated, which will necessitate a cognitive layer for managing and processing the data.

“The volume, availability and growth of data are astonishing. This data deluge will provide ample information to train machine learning and cognitive systems, which are expected to grow by two orders of magnitude, or more than 100 times.”

Cognitive processing to manage data will be necessary to deal not only with current data problems of volume, velocity and variety but also future problems magnified by the growth and availability of data expected in the next seven years, he says.

“Machine learning is the trick to overcome the complexity, and it is extraordinary what we can do with data once we know how to train machines.”

Data is also at the centre of business value and, increasingly, real-world data is used in virtual models that then command physical devices and change physical processes.

Further, enterprise data is expected to continue to grow to 60% of total data by 2025. Additionally, about 25% of total data is set to be real-time data by 2025, of which the Internet of Things data is expected to constitute 95%.

“Data-generating digital consumer interactions are set to increase by 18 times over the next seven years. This means that there will be more enterprise data and that business will be conducted increasingly in real time and be more interactive than before,” says Williams.

Meanwhile, information technology (IT) departments must support uninterrupted business while innovating, implementing and rapidly adapting systems, and lowering costs, says Williams.

“An average of 62% of businesses have experienced ransomware attacks in the past year and about 35% of businesses regularly experience a shortage of IT security skills. Average detection remains about 191 days after a breach.”

However, this situation has been acknowledged, with 44% of business IT charters including the aim of strengthening cybersecurity, he adds.

CommVault’s speciality is improving business continuity and supporting recovery, which requires the visibility of data and control over the policies across a company’s data estate, says Williams.

Better visibility and control also help to reduce the costs of data infrastructure, as companies can start to rationalise and standardise their data backup processes, which simultaneously lower storage and auditing costs, he adds.

These benefits extend to multicloud environments and ensure that data can be moved from premise to cloud and back as an additional layer of recovery and continuity.

“The systems are hypervisor independent, and provide flexibility across the company’s data estate, allowing for data governance and resilience using high-level automation driven by policies and workflow requirements,” he adds.