Data archiving is the process of moving data that is no longer actively used to a separate storage device for long-term retention. Archive data consists of older data that remains important to the organization or must be retained for future reference or regulatory compliance reasons. Data archival systems indexation and have search capabilities, so files can be located and retrieved.
Most companies use data archiving for legacy data or data that needs to be retained to meet regulatory standards such as HIPAA, PCI-DSS, or GDPR. The following is a list of the most frequently archived communication records today:
• Email (with attachment)
• Financial statements
• Operational records
Benefits of data archiving:
- Cost Effective: A well-developed data tiering and archiving strategy can drastically reduce the costs in tiered storage systems by optimizing the storage of cold data out of expensive Tier 0 and Tier 1 drives. Moving sections of less-used cold data out of your primary storage, backups, and DR systems can drastically reduce your storage footprint while cutting storage costs by up to 70%.
- Data Archiving is Non-Disruptive to Users and Apps: Archiving cold data does not disrupt the function of the storage array being analyzed and archived. Users and apps can continue to function seamlessly during and after the data has been archived.
- Secure Data for Regulatory Compliance: Sensitive data can be secured within the archive where it cannot be modified. Maintaining the archived data in this manner is required to comply with data storage regulations in a number of industries.
- Outside Hot-Data Path: Tiering and archiving does not interfere with the pathways of hot data or meta data and does not degrade storage performance. The data archiving process alleviates strain on primary, DR, and backup storage systems, which can improve application response times and enhance hot-data storage performance.
- No Vendor Lock-In with Data Tiering and Archiving: Archiving does not lock you into, having to use the same vendor for your primary storage systems. With access to standard protocols, including S3, SMB, and NFS, data archiving tools avoid locking you into having to use any particular storage device or vendor.
- Native Access from Secondary Storage: Archived data can be accessed directly from secondary storage solutions allowing access for ongoing and future use. In this way, the data is easily accessible so it can adhere to both the daily needs of the business and the constantly changing compliance requirements