UK companies are markedly less willing than their US counterparts to seek out and embrace new techniques for managing archived data over the long term, according to new statistics from the second annual BridgeHead Software Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) Audit.

Striking national differences are apparent in responses to the value of maintaining long-term archived data. Sixty two per cent of US respondents rate preserving archived data for the long-term on multiple media types such as disk, tape and optical technologies as important or very important, while only 41 percent of UK respondents feel the same way.

When asked about the prospect of being able to keep multiple copies of long-term archived data in multiple locations, US respondents are, again, significantly more open than their UK counterparts: only 51 percent of UK respondents say this would an ‘important’ or ‘very important’ development compared to 69 percent of US respondents.

Responses from both countries provide a near-identical pattern of data retention requirements: 9 percent of respondents identify that some of their archive data will need to be retained for in excess of 30 years; and 33 percent of UK respondents and 37 percent in the US state that they have data that will need to be archived for more than ten years. Twenty seven per cent of UK respondents and 31 percent of US respondents say the longest that any data in their organisation needs to be retained is four years or less.

When asked how valuable it would be to be able to search all archived data based on content, only 51 percent of UK respondents say ‘important’ or ‘very important’, compared to 61 percent in the US. In both countries, more than a fifth didn’t know if it was important or not.

Tony Cotterill, CEO of BridgeHead Software, said: “Despite the length of time they know they need to keep data and also despite the fact that well over half of respondents cite regulatory compliance as a driver for archiving, many respondents give the impression that they feel the job is done once data is simply migrated off primary storage. But this is clearly not the case.”

“Compliance is actually about being able to find data, not just migrate it. So, it’s a concern that a question about archive searching was received with indifference by almost half of respondents,” added Cotterill. “With 6 percent of companies unable to retrieve lost files and 23 percent not knowing how long it would take to find a lost file, it’s not as though they have much to be blasé about; I’d have expected more enthusiasm. It shows there’s much work still to do.”

www.BridgeHeadSoftware.com

•Date: 9th Nov 2006• Region: UK/US •Type: Article •Topic: IT continuity
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