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Information Lifecycle Management and Tiered Storage
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Regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) are forcing many organizations, large and small, to retain more information for much longer timeframes than ever before. In addition, that information must be more readily accessible. These requirements are forcing IT organizations to rethink their storage strategies-no longer can they think of meeting their escalating storage needs only in terms of off-line tape or undifferentiated disk, and fast, reliable disk, may be too expensive to meet all compliance requirements. What is needed are additional tiers of storage, which are more suited to data protection, availability, and cost requirements for information as it moves through its lifecycle.
Information Lifecycle Management
Information Lifecycle Management is a practice which recognizes that protection and availability requirements for information change over time, and attempts to align these needs with appropriate infrastructure at any given point in time. Information lifecycle management is based on three fundamental principles:
- Information has a lifecycle.
Information is not static. It is created, used, archived, perhaps used again, and eventually disposed of. Information lifecycle management dictates that data is handled differently depending on the lifecycle state.
- The business value of information changes over its lifecycle.
The business value of most information decays over time. Information is relevant, in use, and of greatest value shortly after it is created. As business needs change, information lifecycle management recognizes that data may become less relevant and may be a candidate for archiving.
Occasionally and unexpectedly, some older information may suddenly become crucial and need to be quickly, completely, and accurately retrieved. An example of this may be a legal matter where failure to produce this information may result in severe penalties.
- The cost of storage media should be aligned with the business value of that information.
Much of an organization's information is not current and doesn't justify the expense of the most accessible tiered storage levels. However, administrators need to be prepared for unexpected requests that require quick, accurate, and complete retrieval-something tape may not be able to accommodate. Information lifecycle management recognizes the need for additional tiered storage levels between highly accessible disk and archival tape.
Xiotech's Tiered Storage Model
As the scenario described above demonstrates, there is a need for additional, well-differentiated tiered storage alternatives among storage media-alternatives that offer a broader array of choices along the dimensions of performance, cost, availability, and recoverability. Xiotech is unique in the industry for offering tiered storage of five levels of accessibility, performance, and cost-all accessible from one point of management and usable by any application and any storage volume:
- Tier I - Solid State Disk (SSD): Critical applications and databases that need the highest performance
- Tier II - Fibre Channel Drives: Other production databases that require high performance
- Tier III - Economy Fibre Channel Drives: Data with long-term, regulated retention: regulatory reports, records for compliance, email, etc.
- Tier IV - Low Cost SATA Drives: Backup and restores/synthetic full backups, near-line file system storage
- Tier V - Tape: Off-site storage of information that has a low probability of needing immediate recall
Summary
A complete information lifecycle management strategy that utilizes multiple levels of tiered storage provides optimal cost and operational efficiency to address increasingly varied storage needs, both today and in the future. Xiotech delivers on that strategy with solutions that are available today and can easily fit into the budgets and operational (staffing) limitations often found in midsized organizations.
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