University researchers have been relatively late to this game, due to a combination of lack of access to large-scale cluster computing facilities and to a lack of appreciation for the new insights that can be gained by scaling up to terabyte-scale data sets. This situation is rapidly changing through access to facilities and training, and due to the successes of their research counterparts in industry. Google, IBM, Yahoo!, and Amazon have provided access to some of their computing resources for students and researchers, using a cloud computing model. This has been enough to whet appetites but not nearly enough to satisfy the potential needs for widespread application of data-intensive computing. Many large-scale scientific projects are formulating plans for how they will manage and provide computing capacity for their collected data. Spirited debate is taking place between proponents of this new approach to data management and computing, with those pursuing more traditional approaches such as database technology and supercomputing. A lack of sufficient research funding is the major obstacle to getting greater involvement among university researchers.