Yet Microsoft understands the threat that data overload poses to Windows' current metaphors.

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Some 29 institutions were affected by so-called distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) which overload a site with data causing it to fall over.

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This new data deluge, sometimes known as Big Data, promises to provide us the opportunity to turn information overload into an asset for better decision making by applying analytics.

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Those include vulnerability to denial of service attacks, which overload servers with thousands of simultaneous requests for data, as well as basic hacking tactics like guessing the password of users who fail to change default settings.

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That finding (from an IDC study) suggests that if you could find a way to eliminate the multiple copies of files and documents scattered around your servers, you could get a handle on your data overload and plan for a more efficient future.

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