What is archiving?
Data archiving is the process of identifying and moving inactive data out of current production systems and databases and into long-term storage systems. Archived data tends to be information that is required to be kept for regulatory compliance, for historical reference or because it can provide analytical value over time.
What is archiving vs. backup?
Data backup is the task of copying current data to another storage location, either on-site or off-site, where it can be accessed or recovered from backup systems if the original data is lost, corrupted or otherwise unavailable. Archiving is about moving data that is no longer active but must be retained to another storage system in order to free up primary storage and improve system performance.
What is archiving intended to achieve?
Archiving is designed to protect inactive or historical data from being lost or destroyed, to retain it in compliance with regulations or corporate retention policies, and to make it easily available to users who need to access it.
What is archiving’s greatest benefit?
The benefits of archiving include:
- Improved performance of applications and systems by reducing the size of databases, file-systems and primary storage sites.
- Reduced cost of storage by moving inactive data from costly, high-performing primary storage to more affordable, low-performance secondary storage.
- Less time required for backing up data from primary storage, as well as the cost of WAN bandwidth required for data transfer.
- Easier compliance with regulatory frameworks.
- Fewer costs for disaster recovery.
- Easier management of applications and systems.
What is archiving’s biggest challenge?
The challenges of archiving include:
- Growing data volumes. With the volume of data growing exponentially, more and more data must be moved to secondary storage, significantly increasing the complexity of archiving.
- The cost of storage. While archive storage is less costly than primary storage, the rapid growth of data means that the cost of archiving storage can quickly spiral out of control.
- Access needs. Even though archived data is considered inactive, users will frequently need to access archives for legal, compliance, research, analytical or historical reasons. Archive solutions that enable self-service can help to minimize the burden on IT teams for managing archive access.
- Evolving compliance requirements. Regulatory frameworks like GDPR and PCI DSS require tight governance over the way the data is used and stored, making archiving more difficult to manage.
What is archiving to the cloud?
Cloud archiving is the process of moving data to secondary storage in the cloud. Potential benefits of cloud archiving include lower costs and easier access. While potential drawbacks include less control and more complex compliance management.