Everything you need to know about archiving all that data
Collecting data is essential to success. Consider Big Data, which is when large data sets are analyzed to reveal trends among your customers and clients. The analytical results can even help you identify core issues in your business model, which will allow you to proactively address issues and capitalize on new opportunities.
Data gives you that competitive edge because it helps you bring to market exactly what your customers want; and, by archiving every bit of data you collect, you’re evaluating data on an ongoing basis and identifying core shopping behaviors by analyzing years of credible information. Clearly, data is invaluable, which means its storage is also invaluable.
Protecting Data at all Costs
Data collection and storage are important to your businesses’ ongoing success, but data collection is not without its disadvantages. Storing data is chief among its drawbacks, as stored data is a threat to your security and archived data takes up a lot of space. You need a system for archiving data that keeps it safe and doesn’t slow down your network because it’s so hefty.
One solution is to archive your data using digital data storage (DDS), which is when you store your archived data on a tape. It’s a fairly standard method for storing or backing up computer data, and it’s among the safest methods as the stored data isn’t stored online (such as on the cloud). Unfortunately, no method is foolproof. It’s important to run regular diagnostics on storage devices, but this is cost-effective when you use the diagnostics and tape data recovery services from Secure Data Recovery.
Protecting your data doesn’t begin and end with diagnostics, you’ll want to ensure each and every tape is also encrypted. According to Information Week, only 22 percent of their State of Storage survey respondents said they encrypt their backup tapes. That’s not good enough. 100 percent of businesses with storage tapes should be encrypting them.
Additional security measures include consistent backup schedules, serial and bar coding, and storing tapes in locked rooms where they can’t be accessed without proper security credentials. Security also comes in the form of hardware, and depending on your industry you may need to upgrade your computer to something more durable and secure.
What to Archive and What to Delete
Once data has been run through the analytical machine, it’s not always necessary to keep it on the cloud. The cloud’s virtual storage space isn’t endless; it has a threshold. Some data should go into DDS (archives) and some should go right in the trash. It really depends on what has long-term importance to your organization.
Your archived data isn’t a backup, but rather data that’s no longer pertinent to day to day operations, but still necessary to your business as a whole. It can be reference materials, previous year’s tax information, important emails, or outdated database records. Sometimes, it’s best to archive all data, but then revisit the archive after a couple years to determine if the data is still necessary; if it’s unnecessary trash it. This is often the best method to ensure nothing is accidentally deleted.
Useless data should be obvious straight-away. If you have any reservations about data, that means it’s not useless, so hold onto it for a while. Go ahead and delete temporary files, installation files, outdated training videos, and informal emails. A good method is to have the data pass through a few hands before its determined inconsequential.
In today’s data driven world, how you archive your data is more important than ever. You never know when something old will become pertinent to operations again. Your best bet is to hold onto everything, and only delete content you're absolutely positive is inconsequential.