Undertesting the Urgent Need for Data Archiving

 Exploring some of the compelling reasons why every expanding business should use a data archiving solution


It is no secret that data is growing by the day. And with the total global datasphere anticipated by IDC to expand from 33 Zettabytes in 2018 to 175 Zettabytes by 2025, the growth is not slow either. There might be numerous reasons for retaining all this ever-growing data, such as meeting compliance standards, retaining historical data, or just storing backup resources. However, all this data may entail the acquisition of additional technology, slow down systems and processes, or pose security risks. Therefore, businesses are turning to comprehensive data archiving solutions to ensure that these risks and obstacles do not stymie their progress to 2025.


However, despite all the buzz about the pros and cons of archiving data, some companies still believe it is equivalent to backing up data – but it is not.


Data archives hold data that is no longer being utilized and allow you to access data over time. They store data in an indexed manner using metadata, regardless of how it was initially saved during active usage. To retrieve data, you must know the search parameters, such as origin, author, or file contents mainly found in the index.


On the contrary, data backups serve as a safety for presently used data, allowing you to restore lost or damaged data from a single point in time. They do not contain index data and keep it just as it was in the original file, server, or database. You must first determine which backup has the required version and where the data is kept to recover that data.


Since backups are usually snapshots of the entire system, it might be difficult to isolate specific data for long-term preservation. This effectively requires storing the whole backup as an archive alongside the originals, increasing the storage resources needed and making it difficult to access individual items when needed. But that is not all why enterprise data archiving is essential now more than ever.


Compliance
Compliance remains the most important reason to archive data for companies operating in a regulated industry. Strict regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, and others govern the preservation of electronic records and establish the periods for which the documents must be preserved. And since communication channels like email are one of the critical sources of company information, they must be kept for the appropriate amount of time per most regulations. Hence, making archiving a necessity more than a choice.


eDiscovery

Email and chat records contain business information bound under compliance regulations, but they also contain information that may be used as evidence in various legal issues. And that is why data archiving solutions are instrumental in eDiscovery, particularly in the early case assessment.


Since attorneys are tasked to search, review, and present every data detrimental to a case, storing data becomes crucial. However, until recently, 70% of eDiscovery expenditures were paid to outsourced legal counsel and service providers, helping organizations decide they should proceed with litigation or propose a settlement. Today, the trend is for fewer third parties to be involved and more to work under the organization's own roof.


Moreover, data from non-traditional sources, such as mobile devices, social media channels, video, and audio files, are increasingly being examined by legal and IT teams for eDiscovery purposes. This implies that they are no longer simply looking at structured data such as email but also at dark data. And without a comprehensive information archiving solution, this data is frequently dispersed among several servers, devices, PST files, and your whole enterprise. Because it is widely scattered, it isn't easy to regulate and use proactively. As a result, even the most conscientious compliance or eDiscovery professionals make mistakes while producing or deleting data on BYOD devices.


Storage

Adding to that, a company's intellectual property is incorporated into its email and instant messaging services to the tune of 75%. This data is vital to safeguard – but it might result in a massive overflow on the servers that keep your data, especially because we know that storage requirements are increasing.


Storing email data on servers will, without a doubt, degrade performance and speed. When deleting is not an option, email and communication archiving is the solution, as it allows enterprises to securely preserve messages on an off-site server or in the cloud.


To conclude, data is a new era, and every organization, from technology to finance to healthcare to manufacturing, cannot progress without it. However, with those mentioned above and other issues, it has become critical to address the urgent demands of data management, whether archiving or deleting defensibly. In addition, depending on the industry, each company must comply with various rules and regulatory criteria. As a result, it is only reasonable to begin recognizing and implementing the critical requirement for a comprehensive data archiving solution.

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