Long-term data storage isn't getting any easier, despite the evolution of storage media. Once, documents were moved to microfiche or stowed away in boxes, and retrieving them meant scrolling through film or sorting through paper archives. Today the challenge is managing digital media to ensure that your storage hardware can access your data years from now.
The key is a long-term storage policy that's planned and executed with legal and company goals in mind. The plan should address every possible problem, from IT staff turnover to technology changes to data-retention requirements. The human element is often overlooked. When IT staffers change jobs, for instance, important data might get lost in the shuffle, especially if records haven't been well-documented or if the data's physical location hasn't been tracked. On the technology side, you need to select a storage medium--tape, CD or DVD, for instance--that will last long term and is easy to use when it's time to access your archives.
Organizations should have at least one IT person whose job or duties include managing archived data. This "go-to" long-term storage-manager position, however, has been the exception rather than the rule in most companies. But that could soon change. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and other privacy-related government regulations are driving organizations to come up with well-orchestrated and managed archival strategies to better protect and preserve their long-term data. Your long-term storage person should work closely with your legal department, as well as with individual department heads, to determine their data-retention requirements. For instance, if the accounting department needs to hold financial data for seven years, then you'd want to set up a deletion schedule so that archived data remains manageable.
A long-term data-storage policy and procedures plan is crucial if your company develops software for internal use or for customers. Old code may be reused or studied, so it makes sense to keep it. Detailed sales records, customer data and other information can be used for analyzing trends, and archived company communication can pay off if you find yourself involved in a patent dispute (it can prove the code was written internally). On the other hand, you can save your company unnecessary legal problems and costs by deleting nonbusiness, or even some business, e-mail correspondence that isn't protected by law.
For the technology part of your plan, you need a simple way to locate and correlate data on a tape or CD. So choose a lookup system, such as a document-management system, with automated or report-based alerts that let you know when data has expired and can be deleted based on your storage policies.
In addition, make sure you set up a budget for long-term data storage, which should include the cost of converting old digital formats to newer ones, whether that task is performed in-house or is outsourced. Don't forget to factor in maintenance for machinery--like tape drives that read your older digital formats once you've converted them.
The Hard(ware) Part
Your data won't have an afterlife if you can't read it a few years down the road. So choose storage hardware that will survive as long as you keep your data. Keep in mind that storage hardware can break or fail easily--the mechanisms in older tape drives, for example, suffer a variety of debilities, including damaged tape-handling rollers.
At a company where I worked several years ago, we used older IBM QIC (Quarter-Inch Cartridge) drives for data restoration on a dual, redundant-server system. All our locations (more than 100) had these drives. When we had to restore data from backup, we used tape. Once, when we were updating code across our 250 servers, nearly all the tape drives in the field failed, so we had to send each location a working drive.
The tape drives had been cooled by an internal fan that drew in air through the cartridge slot and out of the back of the system to keep the internal mechanisms and circuit boards from overheating. Some of the units had been left on, and thanks to the constant flow of air from the fans, little drift sculptures of dirt had settled on the read-write heads and tape-handling mechanisms. The rubber tape-handling rollers had hardened and cracked in many of the drives, and the only ones that worked properly were those that had been accidentally turned off. These units were discontinued; even more frustrating was the difficulty we had finding used tape units to replace the broken ones.
The reality is that storage hardware isn't treated with the same loving care as the tapes. The hardware is not always stored properly--look in a dusty closet, drawer or even under your desk, and you might find the remains of an older tape-backup system. Therefore, when you plan for long-term storage, take into consideration the condition of the hardware you'll be using to retrieve your data. Make sure it's stored away according to the manufacturers' specifications for temperature and other environmental conditions. And, if you've had to replace a specific tape-drive system that has failed, don't leave your long-term data on that drive format.
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