( 3 Votes )
The Garage and Loft is full of boxes of stuff you don't use or need. So whats the first thing you do?  That's right call the real estate agent and move house. Or maybe not. If you did this your friends and neighbours would think you had gone mad, you would be permanently wasting money on removals men, legal fees, taxes etc. and not spending it on stuff that makes your life easier, more enjoyable, or both. So why do businesses accept it in IT systems?

 

 “Data is growing at 125 percent a year yet up to 80 percent of this data remains inactive in production systems where it cripples performance”  Charlie Garry, senior program director at Meta Group

So as the world comes out of recession and IT budgets are being released organisations are looking at the bottlenecks that have developed in the production systems and have to make a decision on the path they are to take. Do you go through the pains of  buying new hardware and migrating systems?

Or do you retire unneeded  and archive unused data? Now as anyone who has spent a weekend clearing out a garage or loft can testify, its not a simple case of throwing boxes away, some hard decisions need to be made. Do you keep or throw that hideous un-used wedding present that only comes out when the rich aunt comes to visit ? (Although last time she came you couldn't even find it amongst the junk and she was definitely a little frosty!). What's the real value of your bashed up windsurfer you never use since moving 200 miles from the sea?

Often the time spent early in the clear-out is setting the "retention" rules and corporate information asset management is no different. The first reaction of most to a new archiving project is "I need everything try someone else". Deep down we all know this isn't true so keep at it.  The worst that can happen is you do need to keep it all but you have a Information Asset Policy in place that reflects the business and information can be found when needed. What will probably occur is you break out of the cycle of reactive IT provision.

So what if you take the "easy" option and go for tin, its cheaper than before anyway. Well firstly its not cheaper, even if prices have come down 50% you need twice the capacity (not including HA/DR bandwidth), management costs have gone up and good luck with the power and cooling bills. The migration knocks production out for a weekend, or more likely Christmas as its the only window big enough, (everyone loves to work at Christmas in a noisy machine room), no one is confident in the recovery objectives anymore and at new year the friendly Database/application salesman turns up and suggests you need to double the licenses, (which were missed off the budget).

And here's the killer in 18 months time you'll do it all again!. So do I think you are mad for throwing tin at data growth issues, rather than spending less, keeping the regulators happy, rolling out new business initiatives and get a bigger bonus? Absolutely dont you?