The Ultimate Guide To Data Archiving: Boost Efficiency And Cut Costs

How data archiving plays an important role in business

Data archiving is becoming increasingly vital as businesses face ever-growing data volumes. The traditional approach of backing up everything is reaching a breaking point. Constant operations, rising data volumes, network bandwidth issues, software licensing limitations, and insufficient disk space are all making it harder for businesses to maintain their Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) and Recovery Time Objectives (RTO).

Every business relies on critical servers or applications that need to stay online with minimal disruption. However, traditional backup methods often make recovery problematic. It is challenging to separate recently accessed or created data from older, less critical files. As a result, businesses often back up everything, even data that isn’t essential for quick recovery.

Backup vs. Archiving: Understanding the Difference

Surprisingly, many businesses treat backups as part of their archiving strategy, but these are two distinct tasks. Backups focus on recovering systems or files to a specific point in time, typically using disk or tape.

In contrast, archiving involves identifying data that must be retained for years or even decades. This data can later be recalled when needed. Archiving may use storage media like disk, tape, or optical solutions. When businesses correctly use both backup and archiving strategies, they can achieve significant cost savings and operational efficiency.

Key Considerations

To develop an effective archiving strategy, businesses must answer critical questions:

• What type of data should be archived?
• Where should this data be stored?
• Who should have access to it?
• What regulatory requirements, such as eDiscovery, apply?

It’s a fact that over 80% of stored data becomes inactive after just 60 days. Properly identifying and managing this inactive data is essential for efficient archiving.

Benefits

A reliable data archiving solution offers numerous benefits, including:

• Enhanced efficiency by reducing storage of unnecessary data.
• Improved compliance with legal and regulatory standards.
• Cost savings through optimised storage solutions.
• Accelerated performance for critical applications and systems.

By implementing a strategic approach to data archiving, businesses can streamline operations and ensure long-term data availability.

If you want to learn more about how data archiving can benefit your business, please contact us using the details below.