For many, archiving is solely considered a component of backup and recovery. It is the movement of tapes outside of a library, either to a local shelf or a remote facility for disaster recovery. While this definition is sufficient for backup, it does not fully articulate the value that archiving can provide.

In fact, archiving is a process that exists independent of backup as part of a broader, business level data retention strategy. In this instance archiving is focused on helping customers reduce storage costs by moving data off of higher cost primary disk to a lower cost storage tier.

Archiving is especially critical for rich media, government, and science & engineering customers that are experiencing explosive growth in the amount of content they maintain and must keep available for revenue generating projects.

For these customers, and others like them, archiving is not an “offline” process where data is moved to a tape and stored on a shelf. Instead it is a “online / active” process where data is stored in a repository that can be accessed at will for repurposing and revenue generation. To this end, a good archiving strategy provides four key features:

• Moves files to lower cost tiers of storage - including tape for maximum cost control
• Allows files to be accessed on-demand for revenue generating activities
• Hides the movement of files so that users do not have to search for data
• Protects and safeguards content as it is moved, so no data is accidentally lost

Combined, these four functions allow customers to manage the cost of growing data repositories without sacrificing or complicating access to data.

To learn more about how Quantum helps customers with their active archiving needs, visit the StorNext product page.