Introduction
Data is an increasingly valuable asset in the digital age. As individuals and organizations amass more data, properly preserving and protecting that data for the long term becomes critically important. This article provides best practices and strategies for long-term data archiving and storage beyond basic backups.
Why Archiving Is Important
Backups are useful for restoring data after an accidental loss or corruption. But backups are typically not sufficient for long-term preservation. Archiving provides intelligent, managed retention of data over decades. Here are some key reasons long-term archiving is essential:
- Compliance: Regulations often require data retention for many years. Archiving facilitates compliance.
- E-discovery: Archived data can be efficiently searched and accessed for legal discovery purposes.
- Analytics: Archived data enables analysis of long-term trends.
- Insurance: Archiving protects valuable data from catastrophic loss.
Best Practices for Data Archiving
Here are some key best practices to follow when implementing a data archiving strategy:
Use Purpose-Built Archiving Tools
Relying solely on backups for long-term data retention is insufficient. Purpose-built archiving tools provide specialized capabilities:
- Automated, policy-based migration of inactive data from production systems into scalable archival storage
- Data retention policies to specify how long data should be kept
- Search and analytics capabilities for accessing archived information
- Data integrity checking and healing to ensure retrievability
Popular archiving tools include archive-specific products and archiving modules within enterprise content management systems.
Store Archived Data on Cost-Effective Media
Archived data grows continually over time. So archival storage media must be highly scalable and cost-effective. Object storage and tape libraries are common media used for archival repositories.
- Object storage: Provides unlimited scalability at low cost, with built-in redundancy for high durability. Public cloud object storage like Amazon S3 can be leveraged.
- Tape libraries: Offer very low cost per terabyte. Tapes stored offline provide an air gap from network threats. Tape is more portable than disks if data must be physically transported for retention.
Adopt a Tiered Storage Strategy
Use a tiered storage approach, with different media for different retention periods:
- Online disk storage: For data retained for 0-2 years. Provides fast access.
- Nearline disk/object storage: For 2-5 year retention. Slower to access but still online.
- Offline tape libraries: For archiving data beyond 5-10+ years. Slowest access but most cost effective long-term.
Automated data movement between tiers based on policies provides a seamless experience while optimizing storage costs.
Verify Data Integrity
It’s not enough to just store data. The archive system must continuously verify integrity and fix corrupted data. Key capabilities include:
- Checksum validation: Validates contents have not been altered.
- Scrubbing: Detects and repairs bit rot and media errors.
- Replication: Maintains extra copies to protect from media failure.
- Error logging: Alerts administrators about errors requiring manual repair.
Carefully Manage Access and Security
While data should be preserved indefinitely, it’s important to control who can access archived data and under what circumstances. Strategies include:
- Access controls: Set granular permissions on who can access archived data.
- Separate networks: Store archival data on isolated networks.
- Air gaps: Use offline media like tape for an air gap from network access.
- Encryption: Encrypt data prior to archiving it.
- Immutability: Make archived data read-only to prevent alteration or deletion.
Conclusion
Intelligently archiving data is just as critical as backing it up. Following best practices around purpose-built archiving tools, cost-effective media, integrity checking, and access controls enables organizations to effectively preserve data over the long term. Proper archiving improves compliance, e-discovery, and analytics while reducing costs and minimizing risk.
