It is no secret that the increase of the amount of data businesses have on file such as emails, customer records, images and digital assets, has led to a need for companies to implement a better system for storing their data. What is surprising is that despite having business-critical data and strict compliance requirements to adhere to, many companies still do not manage their data. As a business process, data archiving should link the requirements and goals of the business with the actions and tactics of its IT organization.

This article will describe a comprehensive business process for archiving corporate information known as Business Archive Management. Business Archive Management spans the entire organization to facilitate three goals: minimize the risk associated with governance concerns, enable the efficient use of corporate assets, and generate value through the reuse of information assets.

The article will also address the wide spectrum of archiving behavior in business today--from the chaotic stage where no process is in place to the proactive stage where a company has not only implemented an archiving strategy, but are using their archives for business benefit.

Capabilities to Master

Implementing Business Archive Management involves mastering four core capabilities, which are implemented over time as the archiving processes advance and business requirements stabilize. The degree to which these four capabilities have been institutionalized determines how effective and mature Business Archive Management is within an organization.

Business planning
Business planning is the capability by which organizations identify archive requirements and gain internal agreement on how those requirements will be managed. This phase also recognizes other corporate mandates such as using environmentally-responsible technologies. Immature organizations do not plan, and requirements are discovered via failed audits or compliance incidents. Advanced organizations have comprehensive processes that gather enterprise-wide requirements for governance and business reuse of information.

The business planning capability is comprised of two key components:

• Business identification--Business identification is a requirements-gathering approach and orientation, conducting a scan of the business for the actual requirements, and discovering and taking inventory of information assets. This process creates the comprehensive set of archive requirements for the enterprise.
• Business/IT alignment--Business/IT alignment is the process by which business and IT stakeholders meet to gain agreement on what requirements mean, define a framework for managing information assets, and publish a set of service level agreements to govern the archiving process.

Archive planning and design
Archive planning and design defines the policies, processes, and architecture that govern how Business Archive Management is implemented and managed. Immature organizations give little or no consideration to archive planning and design--archiving is generally just an afterthought. More advanced organizations craft comprehensive archive architectures and processes for multiple areas of the business that optimize the archive infrastructure, and improve storage operations.

Three components comprise this capability:

• Archive planning--Archive planning creates the overall information classification schema and defines the process for classification. A comprehensive, enterprise-wide metadata schema is also developed and deployed.
• Archive process management--Archive process management defines key metrics, reporting processes, continuous improvement processes, and training requirements that are needed to meet service level agreements.
• Archive architecture--Archive architecture defines the overall physical and logical architecture of the archive along with all the interfaces and integration services that the archive must support.

Archive operations and support
The archive operations and support capability includes ingesting, processing, and managing the archive data. Some organizations maintain an ineffective archiving process as they rely solely on backup, a process that does not support the goals of an archive, and fails to optimize the storage infrastructure. Moderately mature organizations understand that an archive is not a backup, and will begin to segregate archive data from dynamic data to improve operational efficiencies and data access. More advanced organizations begin to consolidate and merge their archive operations. This produces a unified processing and management capability that is optimized for cost and performance.

Archive operations and support is comprised of three critical steps:

• Pre-processing--Pre-processing is the set of activities that readies data for ingestion into the archive. It includes object identification, transformation processing, metadata assignment, and quality assurance measures.
• Archive ingestion--Archive ingestion places the data into the archive, and includes presentation and loading, compliance processing, indexing, namespace management, and de-duplication.
• Internal archive operations--Internal archive operations are the activities required to manage an archive object from ingestion to disposal. These include retention management, compliance management, tiered storage management, search, discovery, recall, archive protection, and restoration.

Infrastructure management
Infrastructure management encompasses the physical management of the archive resources. Companies may manage their archives in information silos, which eventually must be consolidated and integrated into the larger processes for IT management. Best-in-class organizations spend considerable time and effort ensuring that archived information is continuously available regardless of technology changes and upgrades.

Infrastructure management is concerned with three elements:

• Deployment and configuration--Deployment and configuration follow the basic principles of IT asset procurement, testing, and configuration management. These capabilities are typically linked to larger IT organizational processes.
• Resource management--Resource management ensures that adequate capacity exists, that resources are monitored, and that incidents are resolved in a timely fashion. Again, these capabilities are typically linked to larger IT organizational processes.
• Long-term sustainability--Long-term sustainability is concerned with ensuring that archived information will be available over extended periods, and will survive multiple cycles of technology upgrades, refreshes, and changes. Standards need to be enacted to ensure sustainability.

The Five Stages of Business Archive Management

There is a natural progression that organizations follow in developing the aforementioned archive capabilities. This evolution can be characterized by five stages:

• Chaotic--The organization has no formal approach to archive and most times, tape backup is the only form of archive being used. The company is unable to comply with regulations and the business may be at risk. eDiscovery is painful, time consuming, non-compliant, or impossible. Business requirements are random and often ignored. Storage infrastructure is expensive.

• Reactive--Tape backup still used to archive some data and defined archive silos may be in place for select data (email, file, medical images). Corporate governance and storage optimization are the key drivers for archiving. The company may be able to comply with certain regulations and discovery across domains may be possible. At this stage, archiving is beginning to be recognized as a problem.

• Business sustaining--The organization implements formal processes to gather archive requirements and applies a series of complementary controls, policies, and technology capabilities. These actions move the organization to a level of comfort with meeting corporate governance requirements, while improving the overall cost structure and efficiency of its storage environment. Discovery across domains is possible and automated and archive silos are becoming integrated.

• Proactive--Defined archives exist for governance and key business information and the organization can comply with all regulations facing the organization. Archives meet business objectives and archive silos are becoming consolidated/ federated. Storage resources are fully optimized for cost and performance.

• Business value--The organization's archives are recognized as key portion of enterprise value and are fully integrated across the enterprise and into all applicable business processes. The archives create the greatest business value possible balancing cost, value and social considerations.

Applying Business Archive Management to an Organization

As companies mature in their business planning, archive planning and design, archive operations and support, and infrastructure management, and implement Business Archive Management, they will experience a comprehensive and unique set of benefits. Initially, business and legal risks significantly decrease as procedures to comply with external regulations and internal policies are effectively implemented. Subsequently, costs decline as organizations make better use of corporate assets via storage optimization. And finally, when companies begin to use archived information to create new opportunities and revenue streams, this value is translated into bottom-line results.

Without establishing a comprehensive Business Archive Management process, organizations place themselves at risk of violating regulatory compliance requirements or losing or mishandling critical data.

Mike Koclanes is the senior vice president of Sales, Marketing, and Services and Chief Strategy Officer for Plasmon. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .