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ECM: Creating an Active Archive
Active archiving is the process of tagging and moving infrequently used data from high-performance active storage to more cost-effective storage. The term Active Archiving is most often applied to structured data stored in a relational database but it can also be applied to unstructured data.
Off-loaded data can be stored on cost-effective but lower performance storage media. Depending on the media selected, the data could still remain on-line, ‘near-line’, or offline and stored on long-term storage media like optical devices or tape. Some estimates are that only 20% of a company’s data is critical and needs to be stored on high-performance disk storage.
The benefits of active archiving are that removing large amounts of rarely used data from a system can dramatically improve application performance and availability. Further, only active data needs to be backed up on a regular basis, significantly reducing the time needed to perform backups.
If off-loaded data ever needs to be recalled, administrators and end users can restore the data on an as-needed basis.
Business policies often drive the structure of the active archive process. In the world of records management, policies are developed that fully specify how to manage the information of a record from its creation to its final disposition. The policy might specify how the information can be searched, organized, stored and disposed.
Active archiving creates tiered storage systems and each tier typically provides a trade-off of storage performance versus storage costs.
Some questions that can help structure your IT storage policy include:
- Which applications and servers store data that are critical to your business?
- What records can be deleted and when?
- Which IT assets do employees use and with what frequency?
Hitachi Data Systems’ Low Li Kiang recommends the creation of a single active archive for managing content across both commercial and in-house data systems with capabilities of storing both structured and unstructured data. In that way, operations can be centralized on a single archive while ensuring data security, authentication and integrity.
