ILM for your business

Data volumes only keep growing faster. Avijit Basu explains how corporates can use Information Lifecycle Management to stay ahead of their data problems

Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) has become something of a buzzword in business and IT circles. It has come about in response to the business need of managing information through its lifecycle, i.e. from creation through to eventual deletion. Using ILM—which can be best described as an approach or a strategy—any business can manage its data intelligently with minimum human intervention.

The world over, businesses are waking up the possibilities of using ILM to automatically store, move, archive and delete their data according to its relevance and usage. Although ILM has a long way to go before it becomes an accepted business tool, the concept is bound to catch on. In India too, there is a growing awareness of ILM across industries. With globally reputed providers of ILM now offering their services in India, ILM is set to change the way businesses manage their information.

Need for ILM

The value and properties of the data held by an organisation change over time. While newly created or acquired data is frequently accessed and therefore must be immediately available, older data is less frequently accessed. In fact, research has shown that data retrieval activity declines with time. Even a week after data creation, it is accessed fewer times till its eventual archival and deletion.

However, all data must always be accessible until its deletion. It is also possible that infrequently accessed data such as historical sales records are of considerable value to a company, or need to be stored online for compliance purposes. At the same time, no company can afford to keep all its data in a high-end, high-availability storage system because the cost of doing so would be prohibitive.

This is where ILM comes in. By matching the value and relevance of a particular piece of data to your business with the type of data storage media, ILM processes are able to manage data effectively, automatically and efficiently. Although the concepts guiding ILM are not entirely new, two major factors have aided the development of ILM as a comprehensive set of data management processes and policies.

Firstly, companies are witnessing phenomenal data growth. In most industries, the amount of information held by companies is growing at more than 50 percent per year. Companies have data stored online (which uses up disc space), on tapes and in archive libraries (which uses up floor space). There is therefore an urgent need to manage and streamline this vast amount of data.

Secondly, changing government regulations demand that data be retained for longer periods. For instance, healthcare companies in the US now have to keep all medical records and patient histories on file for much longer. Similarly, data such as corporate e-mails and financial transactions may have to be retained to meet new security and compliance requirements.

What does ILM encompass?

Simply put, ILM is a strategy for data management through its lifecycle. The idea is to manage data from the time it is created till the time it is no longer needed.

When a company decides to adopt an ILM strategy to manage its data, the first thing the ILM provider/storage vendor must do is to assess what data exists and where it is stored. Such an analysis will also yield information about data usage patterns. In conjunction with the company’s IT and other departments, the provider must now determine the value of this data. This means understanding the relevance and criticality of various types of data and figuring out what media should be used to store it. Policies can then be designed to automatically assign data to different storage media over time.

Unlike its predecessor, Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM), where data storage was determined exclusively by the frequency of access, ILM uses both subjective and objective criteria in data classification and management. Under an ILM strategy, valuable data may be stored on high-availability media like discs, even if they are not frequently accessed. Additionally, an ILM strategy would take into account the specific business needs of an organisation and store and move data according to the legislation governing that industry.

A combination of user-defined criteria and data value therefore determines data storage under ILM. This has significant cost benefits, because less important data can be optimally stored on cheaper storage media. Through an ILM strategy, you can get rid of inefficient storage utilisation and keep a handle on the cost of information storage.

Additionally, an ILM approach is able to simplify disaster recovery mechanisms. Since data is classified according to its value, it is easier to determine the exact quantity of data that needs to be mirrored or replicated for disaster recovery purposes. Unnecessary files can be deleted, while back-up files can be stored on different media according to their importance.

Applications of ILM

An ILM approach includes data management solutions that have a wide variety of applications. Fixed content such as customer statements and e-mails – which may contain crucial business correspondence or corporate history – can be archived in a systematic manner. In conjunction with leading e-mail and document imaging companies, reputed ILM providers are able to offer wide-ranging solutions for storing, managing and accessing documents.

The exigencies of corporate governance and stringent government regulations often necessitates that an organisation’s data be retained for longer periods. Often, the millions of files in an organisation are subject to myriad business and legal regulations. A comprehensive ILM solution can help here as well, by assisting in the application of regulations to different and ever-changing data. Thus, ILM solutions are designed to satisfy compliance requirements without interfering with the objectives of corporate governance.

Conclusion

Any ILM strategy or process has to be tailored to the specific needs of an individual company. This is because ILM strategies are shaped by subjective criteria such as a company’s goals and mission, and aim to intelligently manage data in support of those goals.

No storage vendor/ILM provider will offer you a cradle-to-grave solution to your data management needs on the first day. Rather, ILM is a step-by-step process that begins with an assessment of your company’s existing data and data storage media. Following such initial surveys, policies are designed to effectively and automatically locate, migrate, protect, archive and remove data. When an ILM strategy is fully up and running in your company, you will be able to significantly save on the costs of storage and free up manpower.

No doubt, only a company with experience in the field of IT—both hardware and software —can design a comprehensive set of ILM processes and policies for your organisation. If you are to entrust your company’s data to another firm, it is essential that the firm you hire has proven expertise and credibility in this field. Finally, the ILM provider must have the capability to service your data management requirements within the country itself in order to ensure constant communication and close partnership.

The author is country sales manager, Network Storage Solutions for HP India. He can be reached at avijit.basu@hp.com