Study: Public sector plans to utilize big data

A recent study by MeriTalk found that government agencies' data volumes will grow by a petabyte in the next two years, and, as a result, 59 percent of surveyed IT professionals are looking to implement big data solutions to improve efficiency. Roughly half of organizations said data quality tools will improve speed and accuracy when making important decisions, while another 30 percent said they will be able to forecast trends more effectively.

"The key is turning that data into high-quality information that can increase efficiencies and inform decisions," said Mark Weber, the president of U.S. public sector at NetApp. "Agencies need to look at big data solutions that can help them efficiently process, analyze, manage and access data, enabling them to more effectively execute their missions."

Recently, Nucleus Research found that large organizations can increase their returns on investment by an average of 241 percent when incorporating big data into analytic initiatives. This process enables decision-makers to gain more insight into the market.

According to MeriTalk, nearly two-thirds of IT professionals believe their database management systems can be expanded to meet evolving demands and harness the power of big data analytics, although initiating the solutions will take about 10 months.