Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 1.1
Storage price. (
Source:
IBM Research.)
rapidly, our expectations as humans are changing at a much slower rate. Some relief is
found in the increasing power of modern data servers because as the data volumes grow,
the computing power behind them is increasing as well. However, the phenomenon of
increasing processing power is mitigated by the need to consolidate server technology to
reduce IT expenses, so as a result, as servers grow in processing power they are often
used for an increasing number of purposes rather than being used to perform a single
purpose faster.
Although CPU power has been improving following Moore's Law, doubling
roughly every 18 months since the mid 1970s, disk speeds have been increasing at a
more modest pace (see Chapter 13 for a more in-depth discussion of Moore's Law).
Finally, data is increasingly being used to detect “information” not just process “data,”
and the rise of on-line analytical processing (OLAP) and data mining and other forms
