Do not store any extra information: it is too expensive

From the translator . How often do you refer to your own home photo archive? Of course, you regularly see fresh photos illustrating recent events from your life. You also send them to your friends via e-mail, post them on blogs and social networks ... But a month goes by - and the memories of the event are erased, and the photos lose their former significance. Looking at the same photos after a year, you may not remember at all when and why all this was taken. As the photo archive grows, a completely reasonable idea comes to your mind: leave only those photos that reflect really significant events (for example, a wedding or a thesis defense) and which you will apply from time to time. But the more time passes, the less feasible becomes such a plan. You just physically can not view this number of photos and determine what needs to be left and what to delete. Therefore, in such a situation, you will most likely make the simplest decision: acquire a larger hard disk and transfer the photo archive to it. However, most of the photos you still will not apply.
The above example shows that the frequency of access to documents decreases with time. Now imagine that this is not about a home photo archive, but about a huge array of documents of an enterprise or organization. For the structured storage of documents in organizations, special software is being implemented - electronic archive systems (SER). In accordance with the definition, which has already become generally accepted and fixed in the MoReq standard, SERs are intended primarily for storing business-relevant documents. However, it often happens that such systems store documents that have lost their significance (for example, videotapes of speeches at the conference on e-commerce problems that for many years have ceased to be relevant or have lost validity orders and orders, the mandatory storage period of which has long expired) .
While developing and implementing our own electronic archive system , we often encounter the fact that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, the expertise of the value of digitized materials in organizations is not paid attention to. As a result, everything is entered into the system, indiscriminately. Entering and storing unnecessary documents is always associated with additional time and financial costs.
How to build an approach to records management, taking into account the inevitable reduction in the frequency of access to the document? How to develop a policy of archival storage, taking into account the rate of information obsolescence characteristic of the current era?
Reflections on this topic are presented in an article by Susan Goodman (USA), a specialist in managing records of Bank of America.



Whether you give yourself this report or not, but your organization has kept terabytes of unnecessary information for years, the storage period of which has long expired. Of course, the old information can be conveyed to the person to whom it may be useful - but you can also think about partial disposal of it. Of course, saving data to many seems traditional and reliable way. However, in many cases it is not.
The topic of the excess cost of “perpetual storage” is raised in many publications. Before we deal with the financial side of the issue, let us try to figure out what makes us keep archive materials for long periods.
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We will deal with it later.

How many times have you come across cases where record management was a primary concern? Answer honestly. Often, in discussing a project, someone will say that some of the records must be deleted. There is a rational grain in these proposals, but you have to postpone them until later: after all, the organization faces far more important tasks.

Law of the rider

According to the law of the Kraider, the cost of storing a unit of information each year is halved. Why develop records management policies if purchasing additional disk space is cheaper?

So safer

Attempts to clean up existing content carry various risks. What happens if the content is deleted, and then it is needed again? It is better to keep it forever and do not touch.

Ragged myth

All of the above explanations, although they seem self-evident, are untenable.

Postponing for later is not an option; Often, no one ever returns to postponed content.
The cost of storing a megabyte of information falls, but the real cost of retaining unnecessary information is growing. Existing studies show that total storage costs can be 5-8 times higher than the cost of equipment. In addition, the storage of unnecessary data entails the need to periodically turn to outdated applications: how else can you open files of outdated formats? Storage of redundant data is impossible without the consciousness of redundant infrastructure. Older applications may not always be running on new hardware, so sometimes you still have to keep the old hardware running. All this requires significant financial costs that could be used for other purposes.

Many people say that storing data after all storage periods is safer; in most cases, however, this is not the case. Old data can easily work against you. For example, their semantic value may be lost: the context in which they were relevant no longer exists.

Start spring cleaning today.

To successfully solve the problem of extra information, we recommend that you adhere to the following rules:

• Develop a clear record management strategy
• When developing strategies and approaches to records management, consider the specifics of your organization.
• Make sure that these strategies and approaches are consistent with all your other plans and projects.
• Develop a plan for keeping records and insist that corporate information is maintained in accordance with it.
• Responsibly approach the problems of storing, organizing and deleting information
• When deleting old information, try to get rid of unnecessary applications and unnecessary infrastructure.
• Assess the value of data in the context of the purposes for which it was collected and stored.

20 years ago, the introduction of information technology was costly. Today it is possible and necessary to use information technology to increase profits. For this you need to develop a thoughtful approach to the problem of data preservation. Otherwise, a lot of time and money will have to be invested in storage unnecessary. There are no positive shifts as a result.