{"id":263,"date":"2007-04-09T07:00:35","date_gmt":"2007-04-09T15:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.formtek.com\/blog\/?p=263"},"modified":"2007-04-09T07:00:35","modified_gmt":"2007-04-09T15:00:35","slug":"ecm-creating-an-active-archive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/ecm-creating-an-active-archive\/","title":{"rendered":"ECM: Creating an Active Archive"},"content":{"rendered":"

Active archiving<\/a> is the process of tagging and moving infrequently used data from high-performance active storage to more cost-effective storage.\u00a0 The term Active Archiving<\/em> is most often applied to structured data stored in a relational database but it can also be applied to unstructured data.<\/p>\n

Off-loaded data can be stored on cost-effective but lower performance storage media.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Some estimates are that only 20% of a company’s data is critical and needs to be stored on high-performance disk storage.<\/p>\n

The benefits of active archiving are that removing large amounts of rarely used data from a system can dramatically improve application performance and availability<\/strong>.\u00a0 Further, only active data needs to be backed up on a regular basis, significantly reducing the time needed to perform backups.<\/p>\n

If off-loaded data ever needs to be recalled, administrators and end users can restore the data on an as-needed basis.<\/p>\n

Business policies often drive the structure of the active archive process.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The policy might specify how the information can be searched, organized, stored and disposed<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Active archiving creates tiered storage systems and each tier typically provides a trade-off of storage performance versus storage costs.<\/p>\n

Some questions that can help structure your IT storage policy include<\/a>:<\/p>\n