Technology and a lack of personnel also present roadblocks. MeriTalk found that when it comes to driving mission results around Big Data, agencies estimate they have just 49 percent of the data/store/access, 46 percent of the computational power and 44 percent of the personnel they need. And 57 percent of the respondents say they have at least one dataset that has grown too big to work with using current management tools and infrastructure.

In an effort to help government agencies harness the power of Big Data, the Obama Administration announced a new "Big Data Research and Development Initiative" at the end of March that promises more than $200 million in new research and development investments in Big Data.

"In the same way that past federal investments in information technology R&D led to dramatic advances in supercomputing and the creation of the Internet, the initiative we are launching today promises to transform our ability to use Big Data for scientific discovery, environment and biomedical research, education and national security," Dr. John P. Holdren, assistant to the president and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), said when announcing the initiative.

Under the initiative, the OSTP, together with six federal departments and agencies will work in concert to achieve the following objectives:

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