Making a limitless data retention strategy affordable

Many content managers agree that keeping all data, for all time is not feasible and companies should implement an information lifecycle management plan. When left to amass without limitations, data can become costly to store, a target for litigation and--most importantly--poorly managed and unusable.

But while data retention time lines have become more important to some companies, they have become controversial to others.

As FierceContentManagement Editor Ron Miller pointed out in an Editor's Corner earlier this year there are a growing number of free-range data advocates. Google's Cyrus Mistry and Wharton's CIO and Associate Dean Deirdre Woods articulated this stance when speaking at AIIM 2010.

InformationWeek's George Crump has also emerged as a believer in what he calls the "keep it all forever retention strategy." In his latest blog post he focuses on containing the costs associated with unlimited data storage.

Crump suggested companies buy storage systems as data grows, rather than purchasing capacity too far in advance. He also advised that capacity optimization should come in two forms: Compression and deduplication. He defines deduplication as "the ability to identify redundant data and only store that data once, captures all the attention."

For more tips on making a "keep it all" retention strategy affordable:
- see this InformationWeek article

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Growing data and dwindling bandwidth
The case for not getting rid of data