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Gary Rider, StorageTek UK
According to Gary Rider, General Manager of StorageTek
UK, the growth of e-mail has created e-mail content access and record management
problems that can only be solved by a rigorous archiving strategy.
Media reports claim that we're sending and receiving more e-mails than ever
before. The need to manage e-mail is also far greater than previously
anticipated. For e-mail is growing not only through the number of mailboxes and
the volume of messages, but also due to the strategic business importance of
e-mail as a primary source of communication.
The versatility and accessibility of e-mail has caused us to commit matters to
e-mail that would previously have merited a call or a letter. It's of no
surprise then that there is an ongoing problem of e-mail content access and
record management, which is not merely an IT or an end-user issue.
Keeping content
E-mails are quick
and easy to create, but the content of a mail may well be needed for some time.
However, current e-mail management practices are often unregulated or
non-existent. At present, retrieving information from an old e-mail involves
searching in an archive e-mail folder on an individual's personal desktop or in
the main backup files - this is risky.
In the case of contract negotiations, for example, numerous people will
contribute information to a document, which in turn needs to be accessible to
many users. Without an e-mail management system in place, confusion can arise
over the content of the document and result in a flawed contract. Keeping sound
records of business communications, especially e-mail, is vital for the smooth
running of a company and to satisfy ever-increasing legal requirements.
E-mail archiving is now a necessity. Data volumes continue to increase at 50-100
per cent a year, but the proportion of data being deleted is falling, so e-mail
files are growing both in size and number. Addressing e-mail archiving and data
storage is, therefore, very important. Left unattended, it will end up posing a
huge financial overhead for companies, as well as placing an unacceptable strain
on existing storage resources.
Yet e-mail is only one element. Imagine the burden of maintaining all
electronically created files, whether from e-mail, PowerPoint or a back-office
system, for a year. Each year, across the global community, between one and two
exabytes of unique data is being created. Companies need to take a strategic,
holistic view of data storage and look at the issue in terms of an Information
Lifecycle Management (ILM) process.
Assessing value
At the heart of
ILM is an understanding of the value information holds at each stage of its life
and, from that, the importance of a co-ordinated approach to managing the
storage and archiving of all forms of digital data. There are two main
challenges facing companies looking to invest in the archiving market.
1. How to implement a hierarchical storage capability without increasing
complexity, management overhead or affecting productivity.
2. How to store data so that cost is proportional to the data's value and
the likelihood of it being accessed.
There are many storage options available. So, companies need to ask tough
questions of storage providers to ensure that the solution selected meets all
their business requirements. The whole ILM cycle must be taken into
consideration to ensure that the most appropriate product for each stage is
selected. Companies have to consider the cost of a solution, its return on
investment, and whether training and technical support is offered.
A primary consideration is the actual value of the data being archived. The
value of data hinges on its relevance to us at a certain point in time. Data
loses value daily as demand diminishes, and the way companies interact with
their data also varies. For example, some companies have lots of data in
databases that needs to be accessed regularly; others need storage for
regulatory reasons. In each case, there must be a degree of flexibility in data
access whilst maintaining a reasonable price.
Companies need to assess their data and establish how the information is being
re-used, how it ages, and when it was created. As the length of time since the
creation of a piece of data increases, so the number of times it will be
accessed decreases.
Challenging times
Access time is
important as is the price of the storage and the nature of the business model.
But the next big challenge for the storage market will be hardware. The issue
will not be the actual hardware cost, but the cost of managing it. Data is
growing at such a rate that a big gap is developing between what the data
manager can support - around 4.5 terabytes - and the amount of data there is.
Forecast growth in data indicates that by 2005, 53 terabytes will need to be
stored.
The important thing is that companies understand how they use and need their
data. Once the pattern of use has been established, a company can make an
informed decision about how to manage and store data in-line with its value.
Four types of data
Critical
-
Data for key
business processes
-
Minimum
acceptable work levels in the event of disaster
-
Data that must
be retained for legal reasons
Vital
-
Data for normal
business processes that represents a substantial investment of company
resources that may be difficult to recoup
-
Data that may
not be immediately required for disaster recovery
-
Data that may
be considered company secret
Sensitive
Non-critical
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