File Archiving Software

With the Data Storage explosion happening the data management of files is becoming a major problem for many IT departments. When files are last accessed, they clog up the file systems, they cause daily backups to increase and consume ever increasing amounts of storage space.

We all know disk is cheap but management costs 5-10 times that of the storage. Over 80% of this information has not been accessed for over 90 days and 60% of that data will never be accessed again.

File Archiving Considerations

File Archiving moves the files from expensive disk storage to less a expensive media, but allows information to be always available. In effect, the system makes all secondary storage devices available as an extension of the primary storage infrastructure. Even though the files are removed from primary storage, navigation and recovery of the archived data is transparent to the user, who uses the same tools to access the archived data as they would for their normal online files.

For business, legal, and regulatory requirements, the data must be available for many years or even decades. Thus, longevity of the media, drive technology, and data filesystems must be weighed when designing the archiving system.

Compliance and Regulations

Data can be both an asset and a liability. Depending on external or internal compliance regulations, files such as .doc, .xls, .ppt, . jpg etc, might need to be archived for a specified period, other data might need to be deleted. Clearly a File Archiving system needs to flexible to allow for both compliance regulations and individual requirements of the organisation. The data retension rules for the files must be flexible enough to allow for the files to be migrated to key storage media and deleted, when they are no longer required.

Compliance is not just a function of data retention. It is also a function of data privacy and data auditability. A compliant archive protects files from unauthorised access and at the same time, monitors and records in an audit trail all authorised access and movement of files in the archive.

Time Management

File Archiving rules and retension periods must be clearly defined. Otherwise the administrators of the system will forever be defining file policies, data retension periods and file migration rules to secondary storage. The system needs to be fully automated in design, once the departmental heads have defined which servers, drives, and directories the policies will be applied to, these schedules are set, the policies should run unattended… literally “set and forget”.

Should there be a need for intervention, the administrator is automatically notified.

Secondary Storage Support

A file archiving system potentially make use of any device and media type across the network for data storage. These include RAID, tape libraries, optical jukeboxes, NAS, iSCSI or any combinations thereof. The archiving system maintains a full catalogue of available devices and media, while also keeping track of media already in use.

Given this “map” of the infrastructure and the availability of media, file archiving system uses its built in intelligence to determine which media/device to use. If ever a device is not available, file archiving system will use an alternative. The file archiving system also provides complete robot management facilities for automated use of most standard storage devices.

Data Access and Security

The file archiving system must provide a comprehensive database that stores metadata related to all archived files. The database must provide an audit trail of activity for security and management purposes, as well as an index of files for easy data navigation, access, and recovery.

The database must manages file access privileges, ensuring that data is protected according to the security and access rights of the original file, so that only authorised users can access and recover copies of the archived file. These security facilities ensure that users can only access data that they were originally authorised to view within the online file system. Administrators with appropriate privileges can manage and navigate files across the entire archive, recovering data as required.

Transparent Access to the Archive

With file an effective file archiving system, administrators and users can view and/or retrieve archived files using the standard Windows Explorer interface. This means that they can navigate the archive as easily as their normal online files. The archive file structure is an exact mirror of the original file system directories.

Summary

We can assist you with consultancy, deployment, recommendations, maintenance and support by making the right choice of software and hardware based on your organisational requirements.

Please contact us on Tel: +44 (0)1256 782030 : 08704 286186, or complete our information form and we will be in touch.