Archiving has taken on new meaning as regulations like HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley and FDAs 21 CFR Part 11 change the rules for long-term data storage.
The term data archiving encompasses two concepts:
Passive archiving refers to removal of data from one system to a less expensive form of media -- data is retained for long-term storage, not frequent access. Depending on technology used, a ‘stub” can be left in place of the archived data. The stub provides the means to retrieve the data.
Active archiving is concerned with data collection. Data is organized and maintained to ensure ready retrieval of content.
Request an Archiving Discovery from Mosaic
Our Archiving Discovery Session is a complementary session where we meet with you – on site or by phone – and give you an independent assessment of what archiving would look like in your environment.
We help you with initial scoping in terms of data volume, bandwidth, and locations. You can leverage our expertise to get a fix on the benefits, potential problems, and budget implications replication could have on your operations.
Comparison:
- Both passive and active archiving strategies address regulatory requirements.
- Both archiving techniques also address data retention responsibilities.
- Active archiving provides more ready retrieval of records than passive archiving does.
- Active archiving also requires considerably more processing and physical computing resources than does a passive archive.
Plan your archiving strategy:
- Identify data to be archived based on its value, and understand risk to the organization if data is lost.
- Define and document requirements for archiving.
- Develop policies and procedures to support your archiving goals.
- Train users and administrators on the chosen archiving solution.
- Periodically check the performance of the solution. Don’t assume it works flawlessly, and remember that even the best-architected system degrades over time.
- Seek independent, unbiased advice as you identify needs, specify the solution, implement the system and train users.
Technologies that address the two types of archiving differ significantly as do strategies for designing and implementing a solution. Three to consider:
