What Does Data Gravity Mean?
Data gravity is an analogy of the nature of data and its ability to attract additional applications and services. The Law of Gravity states that the attraction between objects is directly proportional to their weight (or mass). Dave McCrory coined the term data gravity to describe the phenomenon in which the number or quantity and the speed at which services, applications, and even customers are attracted to data increases as the mass of the data also increases.
Techopedia Explains Data Gravity
Data is something that continues to accumulate over time, and could be considered to become more dense, or have a greater mass. As density or mass accumulates, the data’s gravitational pull increases. Services and applications have their own mass and; therefore, have their own gravity. But data is much bigger and denser than the two. So, as data continues to build mass, services and applications are more likely to be drawn to the data, rather than vice versa. This much like an apple falling to earth, which if often provided as a typical example of gravity. Because the earth has more mass, the apple falls to the earth, rather than the other way around.
