Too often, data archiving is treated as a routine back-office task, separate from other strategic priorities. But done intelligently, archiving ensures that all data, whether active or dormant, remains accessible, governed and usable. The costs and benefits of archiving are something that deserves careful scrutiny.
The global data storage market is projected to grow from $255 billion this year to $774 billion by 2032. We have touched on the topic of data growth at multiple points on this blog, with the simplest way to phrase it being that digitization is driving greater volumes of data into being.
The majority of this data very quickly becomes “stale,” without a current use – but can still be relevant to your business needs in the future. What’s more, regulatory standards in many cases mandate keeping that data in some accessible, auditable format.
What questions should we ask before archiving?
There’s a number of key points to consider when preparing to archive data, including:
- What data must remain in the active system?
- What should be archived, and what can safely be deleted?
- How will archived data be accessed in the future?
- How can we guarantee compliance with audit, legal and regulatory standards?
These questions are a good starting point for considering what manner of system is right for your organization. Your data volume, proportion of stale data to active data, regulatory environment and more will determine even more and let you choose what software you should be looking at for your archive.
What are the costs and benefits of archiving?
For many organizations, the costs and benefits of archiving are the beginning and end of the discussion. It is important, though, to remember many of these are non-obvious and include factors like opportunity and sunk costs that will commit you to a path moving forward.
The salient benefits of archiving are, succinctly:
- The ability to offload data into a cheaper repository
- Compliance with regulations and norms
- Indexed and searchable storage for information
- A decluttered, freer and more responsive primary system
In order to acquire these benefits, the costs will revolve around quite literal cost – acquiring a suitable archive, maintaining both the software and the infrastructure needed to keep it running (or the maintenance fee to an external partner or Cloud provider, if applicable). Like any other piece of software or internal system, archives are something that requires investment and attention to unlock the advantages of.
Your Data In Your Hands – With TECH-ARROW
