Steps to Successful Automatic Data Archiving Implementation

Capital Data Incorporated
November 17, 2008 | COMMENTS

There are several reasons that companies archive data, and also several categories of data that are archived. E-mail documents, “office” files, technical diagrams, and database information are some examples of commonly archived data. Typically, organizations archive e-mail to address either an operational need (management of IT resources—disk space) or a legal need (for compliance or litigation purposes).

A well-designed archiving solution should address some clearly defined business need(s) and ensure that those needs are met in a consistent and controllable manner. Enterprise-class archiving solutions should allow for automated control of archiving policies, support to meet compliance rules, and some tools to ease the burden associated with litigation. Finally, the implemented solution should provide a user experience that is minimally changed.

Effective solutions will move data that is accessed infrequently to less expensive disk arrays. This allows an organization to free space on the best performing storage (Tier 1) in the organization and delay the purchase of, or upgrades to, these high-end arrays. During the migration to archived storage pools (lower-class disks), effective archiving solutions will index information about the data that is archived. This will allow for more effective management of data and provide a means for searching for data in the organization (e-discovery functions) in a more efficient manner. These characteristics allow users to do personal searches more effectively, thus providing a better experience.

Business Need Planning

Not all archiving strategies are right for every company. The specifics of the archiving strategy need to be clearly defined. Establishing the scope of the project will ensure a clearly defined path to success. The essential step of “Requirements Gathering” needs to extend beyond the IT staff (which may be the driving group). At this stage, it is imperative that representatives from the Legal Department be involved. There may be constraints involved with the implementation of an archiving solution that might not be apparent to the majority of the business. In some cases, the Legal Department may want very little involvement with the requirements process to avoid the legal ramifications of these decisions.

It is essential to clearly define the need for archiving. An individual is typically concerned with personal e-mail; however, when put into the context of a business need, those individuals may see the larger need for an archiving strategy and set aside their personal desires to support the business decision and the archiving policies.

Also critical is the need to determine a champion for the project. Ultimately, someone of authority needs to be behind the project. This person should have the ability to assemble people from disparate organizational groups (Legal, HR, Operations, Safety, etc.) and bring them together to fill a common need.

Detail Planning

Now that the business needs are clearly defined, the technical details must be addressed.

This is the “How” part of the archiving process. At this stage, the grouping of data by type, functional group, age, etc. are defined. A clear matrix consisting of these data types should evolve from this stage.

Simply grouping documents by technical details (file type, size, etc) does not address how these files are used and does not reflect any real business need. For instance, spreadsheets used by the Finance Department will likely be used differently than spreadsheets used by HR. The grouping of data into similar categories will help define desired archiving behavior.

After the documents and data have been categorized, the actual archiving behavior should be determined. Typically, the category of the data (as defined previously) will be applied to an age (and possibly size) and archived accordingly. The behavior of archived documents and the actual process needs to be defined as well. For example, Finance Department “office” documents that are greater than six months old will be archived. A shortcut will remain in the file system pointing to the archived document. The archived document will be purged after one year. No user may be allowed to delete the actual archived information, but may remove the pointer record.

Although it may appear that a broad archiving process may be the correct solution for the business, without working through the categorization exercise, the resulting policies may result in excessive administration of exceptions. For example, a defined archive period for all e-mail for all employees of one year may result in exceptions for all of the Legal Department, some vice presidents, and several people in HR.

Implementation

After all the planning and testing it may be tempting to simply turn on archiving for e-mail and other data for all users, but restraint is the key. Data is very important to individuals—in particular, e-mail. Start by archiving very old documents that haven't been accessed in quite some time and then move to newer documents. This will allow the company to understand the effects of archiving and how it affects their daily work.

Move to archiving e-mail for select functional groups and users who will help through a pilot phase. Again, start with very old documents to allow them to be comfortable with the effect on their new e-mail system. The business impact of archived e-mail to a remote user is hard to define. This may force the implementation team to revisit the categories in which that data was placed.

Finally, begin the transition to the rest of the organization. Clearly communicating the effects of archiving should help set expectations for all users. A general communication to all users (sent prior to the archiving process for the general user population) should outline the business need and impact so that users realize the benefits to the business as a whole.

Additionally, incorporating lessons learned during the pilot phase (“how to,”FAQs, etc.) will help set expectations for the users. A final communication should be sent to individuals as their e-mail (added individually or as a group) is set to be archived. Help-desk personnel and other support staff should also be informed as to when users will be moved to aid them with potential issues.

On-Going Activities

As archiving progresses, the effects should be measured and compared to the expected outcome. The evaluation comprises typical project implementations: Are there too many technical issues during the switch-over phase? Have users been educated adequately or are there excessive calls on basic functionality? Is performance acceptable? Are the business benefits of archiving being realized?

The feedback loop of performance (be it technical or perceived user experience) should be shared with the business. All too often, project success reports are limited to the project team and those stakeholders involved with the project. Since individual processes may have been changed, it is important to ensure that people within the organization have some insight into the success of the project.

Conclusion

With careful implementation steps and good communication, an archiving strategy can be implemented in such a way as to minimize negative business impact. The solution should meet clearly defined business needs and should achieve tangible goals. The benefits should be shared with the company to ensure that people remain confident that changes within their environment are implemented to better the company.

This article was orginally a white paper authored by Milwaukee-based Capital Data Incorporated, an IT provider of customized data solutions, and is reprinted with permission. Contact Capital Data Incorporated at 414-223-8025.