Have the enterprises come of age to understand the importance of database archiving?

Database Archiving Solutions have an immense task at hand! Enterprise databases have almost grown much larger than their owners could even fathom. Like in an obese person, instead of too many carbohydrates, it's a regular diet of indigestible and wasteful transactional data that causes database obesity. This causes serious after-effects on database health, such as decreasing disk space, poor processing performance and extreme slow access rates or queries timing out, causing irritation among users.

Many IT managers and database administrators have reported that larger databases severely affect application performance. Bulky databases take excruciating time to load, unload, sort, reorganize and recover. Even response time gets affected badly and can get painstakingly slow wherein some critical processes become almost impossible to be performed. The processing times overlap and the start of routine operations gets often delayed. Also, data retention requirements imposed by government regulations and the company itself prompt the need to manage and store information for longer periods which in turn results in increased operational costs.

The most recent Gartner report revealed that database archiving can significantly lower primary storage costs by transferring older data to relatively cheaper storage, which is accessible at real time. Unique to database archiving actually, active archiving allows organizations to archive rarely accessed or reference data from application databases while providing access to data on demand. Also it is required that the storage format be indestructible and inerasable. It is estimated that there is a drastic improvement in performance and extreme reduction in costs for databases with size even less than 200 GB due to active archiving.

The legal implications of not pursuing data retention in enterprises for a proposed period of time can create huge problems. Additionally there are the needs of the company as it also needs the rare referential data for use at some point of time or another. Apart from the problem of depleting disk space, companies have reported problems such as total system outages during the processing in the database. Problems also include backup failures when there's huge data to be backed up and time-out of transactions while scouring through millions and millions of records.

Database Archiving is a widely-used process of plucking out selected records from operational databases which are not to be used quite often. The archived data is then stored in a non-erasable format like XML files where they can be searched and retrieved if needed.

Database Archiving Solutions and Its Principles

Large enterprises today are neck-deep with information flooded from all directions in their respective storage mediums. Unused data is continually eating up resources, and gobbling up the organization’s profits. Megabytes gave way to gigabytes, gigabytes have acceded to terabytes, and in the near future, terabytes is sure to escalate to petabytes. The data is growing relentlessly with organizations waking up to the reality of data explosion. The latest data retention clauses for pharmaceutical companies are at least 20 years while nuclear facilities will have to hoard data for 50 years. Database archiving solutions help in reducing costs, retaining data, and also aids in complying with regulation procedures.

In the face of exploding data filling up servers in the world over, information lifecycle management has become complicated to be implemented efficiently. Database archiving software helps in managing data effectively; releasing data is rarely used or redundant to other cost-effective storage mediums. Data retention compliance issues are also resolved through such an approach.

Database Archiving solutions are widely used process of plucking out selected records from operational databases which are not to be used quite often. Some principles which guide the database archiving solutions at work are:

Assess: Determine which applications and versions are most in need of archiving, grouping them into categories based on your business requirements.

Classify: Document functional business rules and data retention policies to govern active, inactive and compliance-managed data.

Archive: Segregate historical business objects or transaction records from current activity. Safely move them to a secure archive.

Store: Store archived historical records securely and cost-effectively, according to the evolving business value.

Access: Apply service levels that provide decision makers with access to the historical records they need, when and how they need them.

Tune: Monitor operations to verify that archive operations continue to support desired service levels and access requirements.

Dispose: Prevent information assets from becoming information liabilities by deleting historical records after they are no longer required for compliance or business purposes.

The most recent Gartner report also says that database archiving solutions can significantly lower primary storage costs by transferring older data to relatively cheaper storage. Performance improvement and cost reduction is tremendous even for databases with size less than 200 GB.

Database Archiving Solutions and Exploding Data Growth

Database archiving solutions are springing up with every coming day, but not at the pace at which information is just piling up in several enterprises. The consistent gigantic growth in the size and space of databases is known all over, but the integration of database archives into ILM strategies poses an overwhelming challenge for many database administrators. What once was measured in megabytes and gigabytes, have now given way to terabytes and petabytes. Storage is also a critical issue from the legal point of view because the latest rules and regulations for compliance have stressed that the organization must retain data for several years and availed at will for inspection.

What Enterprises Need

Enterprises focus on satisfying three core objectives viz. Resource Management, Storage and Data Protection and Compliance with external regulations and internal policies. It is also useful for customers with applications running on Oracle or SQL Server databases that experience difficulties related to unbridled data growth, performance degradation and increased downtime.

Database archiving solutions mostly concentrate on removing selected data records from transactional and operational databases especially which are rarely referenced, and storing them in an archive from where the records can be retrieved again, as necessary. Database archiving software is crucial for large enterprises to improve on system performance, meet compliance regulations, and indirectly save on time and money.

According to Enterprise Strategy Group estimates, the number of primary databases is escalating at the rate of 25 % annually, with a subsequent boost to secondary databases as well. Database archiving solutions are expected to improve performance which is a prime concern for database administrators who handle bulky databases. Though enterprises bring up their own custom database archiving tools in the event of loss of performance or rising storage costs, the process actually becomes a little more complex. Integration with the database, having efficient storage software and seamless integration with the supposed application complicates things. Hence it is best left to database archiving solution vendors who are experts in their field.

Legal Implications

The legal implications of not pursuing data retention policies and database archiving solutions in enterprises can create huge problems. Additionally there are the needs of the company as it also needs the rare referential data for use at some point of time or another. Apart from the problem of depleting disk space, companies have reported problems such as total system outages during the processing in the database. Problems also include backup failures when there's huge data to be backed up and time-out of transactions while scouring through millions and millions of records.

Role of database archiving solutions in the enterprise world becoming more prominent

Database archiving solutions mostly concentrate on removing selected data records from transactional and operational databases especially which are rarely referenced, and storing them in an archive from where the records can be retrieved again, as necessary. Database archiving software is crucial for large enterprises to improve on system performance, meet compliance regulations, and indirectly save on time and money. The principles of database archiving are as under:

• Assess: Determine which applications and versions are most in need of archiving, grouping them into categories based on your business requirements.

• Classify: Document functional business rules and data retention policies to govern active, inactive and compliance-managed data.

• Archive: Segregate historical business objects or transaction records from current activity. Safely move them to a secure archive.

• Store: Store archived historical records securely and cost-effectively, according to the evolving business value.

• Access: Apply service levels that provide decision makers with access to the historical records they need, when and how they need them.

• Tune: Monitor operations to verify that archive operations continue to support desired service levels and access requirements.

• Dispose: Prevent information assets from becoming information liabilities by deleting historical records after they are no longer required for compliance or business purposes.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, HIPAA and BASEL II are some of the laws and regulations related to data retention. It has been estimated that there are over 150 federal and state laws which elaborate extensively on the subject of data retention in the US. Today, the retention period is basically determined by the government itself. The data retention period which ranged from five to seven years are now crossing the barriers of 20 to 70 years.

Database Archiving solutions involve plucking out of selected records from operational databases which are not to be used quite often. The archived data is then stored in a non-erasable format like XML files where they can be searched and retrieved if needed.

Most database archiving solutions help in migrating data from live production databases to database archives, while managing the integrity and accessibility. Enterprises focus on satisfying three core objectives viz. Resource Management, Storage and Data Protection and Compliance with external regulations and internal policies. It is also useful for customers with applications running on Oracle or SQL Server databases that experience difficulties related to unbridled data growth, performance degradation and increased downtime.

Database Archiving Solutions and Exploding Data Problems

In the face of exploding data filling up servers in the world over, information lifecycle management has become complicated to be implemented efficiently. Database archiving helps in managing data effectively; releasing data is rarely used or redundant to other cost-effective storage mediums. Data retention compliance issues are also resolved through such an approach.

According to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the increasing data in the scientific world will quickly become a limiting factor. Nowadays many huge companies carry terabytes of data and soon petabytes of data will not be unusual in the future. Google itself carries loads of data, there is the Library of Congress which boasts of terabytes of data. To copy a petabyte of data would take approximately 3 years with the current systems and technologies. Database archiving solutions if implemented today will help in stemming the pace at which the data is exploding today.

Large enterprises today are neck-deep with information flooded from all directions in their respective storage mediums. Unused data is continually eating up resources, and gobbling up the organization’s profits. Megabytes gave way to gigabytes, gigabytes have acceded to terabytes, and in the near future, terabytes is sure to escalate to petabytes. The data is growing relentlessly with organizations waking up to the reality of data explosion. The latest data retention clauses for pharmaceutical companies are at least 20 years while nuclear facilities will have to hoard data for 50 years. Database archiving helps in reducing costs, retaining data, and also aids in complying with regulation procedures.

Database archiving plays an important role in implementing ILM in a complex relational database. Removal of rarely accessed data releases the processing power and improves application performance and efficiency. Purging of irrelevant data also helps in implementation of new applications in the present hardware itself, without adding to any or little overheads. Additionally scheduled archiving releases a huge amount of disk space which is then utilized for other uses saving millions in software or hardware upgrades. Archiving provides a worthwhile solution to the data explosion problem, while cutting on the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

Here are some of the benefits of implementation of a database archiving software in an enterprise:

1. Improvement of availability and performance of the production server for transactional reasons.

2. Meeting of SLAs (Service Level Agreements).

3. Improvement in user response times.

4. Less data to manage, hence less costs incurred in data management.

5. Quicker and efficient data backup because of less primary data stored in the production server while all static data is transferred to the archive.

6. Quick and timely response to compliance & eDiscovery requirements with an archive that automatically manages data retention, security and immutability.

7. Reduction in storage costs with a significantly reduced cost per GB.

“ROI of Database Archiving is Difficult to Quantify,” Say Analysts

Industry analysts have continually stressed on the need for data retention utility software in enterprise databases. The size of the databases is estimated to be growing at the rate of 125% annually. On an average, about 80% of the data in various enterprise databases is estimated to be redundant or not used for real-time purposes, which makes it ready for archiving purposes. Database archiving solutions are already present in the market, and they serve the data retention purpose.

Database archiving software and database archiving solutions are created by some of the biggest companies in the IT world. But there has been a resonating hesitance on the part of the companies to adopt the software although news has been wild that the software can trim the fat and protect historical data present in the enterprise databases. There are some reasons mentioned for this, by analysts. The prime reasons are:

• The benefits of database archiving have always been difficult to quantify. Most database archiving solutions which are introduced by today’s companies are catered to large databases. Burgeoning database owners can always look to shell money on hardware for backup, but are not altogether convinced about loss in performance and cost of other upgrades.

• Databases contain critical data related to the company and hence database owners are averse to exposing it to relatively unknown products.

• Some database archiving solution providers are unable to point out the benefits of database archiving in an effective manner. Also, they are unable to address the direct pains of different companies related to data management. Compliance issues and their future monstrous consequences if not heeded to, are not explained in detail by the vendors.

• Firms are not usually proactive to search for characteristics they actually need from a database archiving tool.

• Storage administrators and DBAs need to understand more about the intricacies of query building and other stuff rather than just the plain benefits of database archiving software. Awareness of recalling and modifying the data along with its purging technology is needed.

• Some database administrators and users equate database archiving to deleting data. Hence awareness should be built up at first that archiving basically relates to data being moved from production database to the archive.

• Before database archiving solutions to be implemented in any environment, it is essential to understand the data retention policies applicable to the industry. Many vendors do not attach much importance to it, but it is essential to pinpoint the advantage of archiving for retention as it is one of the most pivotal reasons why any company will opt for database archiving.

• It is important to note that service-level agreements (SLAs) associated with data which is archived are not like those applicable for production databases. The number of users who will have archive access should also be predetermined. Backup plans for database archives should be considered too.

Database archiving solutions are indeed difficult to quantify but if taken the right approach, the resultant savings are actually worth it.

Principles of Database Archiving That Negate Data Explosion

Database archiving solutions are slowly and steadily stamping their necessity in enterprise database companies. Megabytes gave way to gigabytes, gigabytes have acceded to terabytes, and in the near future, terabytes is sure to escalate to petabytes. The data is growing relentlessly with organizations waking up to the reality of data explosion. The latest data retention clauses for pharmaceutical companies are at least 20 years while nuclear facilities will have to hoard data for 50 years.

Some principles which guide the database archiving solutions at work are:

Assess: Determine which applications and versions are most in need of archiving, grouping them into categories based on your business requirements.

Classify: Document functional business rules and data retention policies to govern active, inactive and compliance-managed data.

Archive: Segregate historical business objects or transaction records from current activity. Safely move them to a secure archive.

Store: Store archived historical records securely and cost-effectively, according to the evolving business value.

Access: Apply service levels that provide decision makers with access to the historical records they need, when and how they need them.

Tune: Monitor operations to verify that archive operations continue to support desired service levels and access requirements.

Dispose: Prevent information assets from becoming information liabilities by deleting historical records after they are no longer required for compliance or business purposes

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, HIPAA and BASEL II are some of the laws and regulations related to data retention. It has been estimated that there are over 150 federal and state laws which elaborate extensively on retaining data in the US. Today, the retention period is basically determined by the government itself. Data which was to be retained in an organization for a period of about five to seven years is now crossing the barriers of 20 to 70 years.

According to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the increasing data in the scientific world will quickly become a limiting factor. Nowadays many huge companies carry terabytes of data and soon petabytes of data will not be unusual in the future. Google itself carries loads of data, there is the Library of Congress which boasts of terabytes of data. To copy a petabyte of data would take approximately 3 years with the current systems and technologies. Database archiving solutions if implemented now will help in stemming the pace at which the data is exploding today.

For burgeoning enterprises with mission critical databases, database archiving is rapidly becoming a necessity, not an option. Database archiving is a solution to a number of seemingly unrelated issues. Those include improving the performance and availability of the live production databases, managing data retention policies - notably compliance - effectively, and preserving database data as long as required. Above all, database archiving keeps the business running.