Firstly, I want to begin by saying thank you to all the readers for making the first issue of our quarterly magazine such an overwhelming success. In the first few months working with our communications team, we all wondered whether or not it would be well received—the fact that we are now releasing issue #2 is a testament to the readers and their fantastic feedback.

So here we are—an issue that speaks directly to the new world that we live in, one driven by our need for speed and our reliance on all things that represent data in the new millennium. And, oddly enough, there is a common thread regardless of what aspect of data that you look at—it has come to represent the currency for business and personal use alike.

Whether it’s the need for speed—the throughput at which data can be consumed, stored, and re-transmitted—or the desire to create and analyze for better experiences in our work or personal lives, data is the lifeblood that sustains our global communities.

However, the question that must be asked is what is the future of data and the infrastructure that supports it? If we are continually seeking better, faster, and more data at every turn, is there an end-point in sight? Or are we to believe that anything is possible and that the scope, size, speed, and impact of data is to evolve past any of our wildest imaginations?

This issue has been put together to address many of these questions. How and what to measure, how to fulfill the requirements as they pertain to speed, what to do to secure it, and what is to become of the infrastructure left in the wake of progress.

As always, I sincerely hope you enjoy this issue and garner even a glimmer of insight into the world that is and the world that will be.