Moving Beyond Information Life Cycle Management

The Impact of Growing Data

According to industry analysts, data is growing at a rate of 20–40% annually, and the individuals responsible for storing and protecting that data are being asked to do so with reduced staffing and at lower costs, while increasing service levels. Executives are now personally responsible for ensuring that their organizations’ approaches to handling data complies with new regulations and mitigates risk. Employees have an increasing need for immediate access to information in order to perform their jobs. Companies often need to share data more effectively both within and outside the organization. There is continual pressure to do more with less and at a faster rate. In an attempt to address these issues, organizations are constantly seeking and trying new solutions to be more efficient and productive. However, the result is often a very complex IT environment that includes multiple hardware and software components that might not work well together. To make information and storage management more effective and responsive, businesses need to align the IT environment with business initiatives and make intelligent decisions that help drive the business forward.

The Current Focus of ILM

ILM is the process of managing data from its creation to its eventual removal. From a storage perspective, this involves moving the data through different types of storage media (for example, from disk to tape to an offsite vault), enabling organizations to leverage the most cost-effective storage options. Historically, data was often moved from one medium to another based primarily on its age or how frequently it was accessed. The older or less regularly used the data, the more likely it was to be moved to low-cost, low-performance, less-accessible systems. However, this posed problems for organizations that needed immediate access to information that is not often used. For example, medical records might be old or accessed infrequently, but in an emergency they must be instantly available. A more valid way to determine where and how long to store data is based on the value of the data to the business.