Redefining The Data Archive: The Case For Active Archiving

Generating enormous amounts of data is easy. How to store the data requires some thought, though, because of the changing nature of data. The choices are less straightforward today.

In the past, the choice of how to store data was fairly simple: hard disk or tape? If the content was constantly changing, then the obvious choice was to keep the data online and readily available, on a local or shared hard disk. Otherwise, the data was archived in a tape library and often shipped offsite, from which retrieval would be rare. There was a clear-cut choice between immediate accessibility and long-term storage.

Today, a certain category of data is growing in prominence, content that is fixed and historical, not dynamic, yet requiring online access as well as safe, permanent storage. For this type of content, hard disks are a costly option even if the purchase price was zero, and tapes are too cumbersome for rapid retrieval.

The Changing Value of Data
In looking at the changing data storage landscape, one trend is clear: There is increasing pressure to permanently preserve a greater number of important records for longer periods of time and still make them electronically accessible. The data must be kept in its original form, unaltered, for more than just 10 or 20 years, often permanently.

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