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Many businesses respond to database overload by expanding their storage and processing infrastructure to accommodate larger databases. This includes incremental high-performance online storage, and even offline tape devices. But as budgets shrink, IT executives are challenged to justify continued investments. Reclaiming current resources becomes critical for managing costs and reducing infrastructure complexity.
Laws and regulations requiring the retention of certain data can further complicate the picture. It may no longer be acceptable to simply delete unused or historical data, but it may also be impractical to leave such data in an online production system, because it can worsen the problems of database overload.
Database archiving: The approach you take makes a difference
IT executives are turning to information lifecycle management (ILM) solutions — including those implementing a tiered storage approach — in which historical data, sometimes called
active reference data, can be migrated to a near-line or offline production environment and retained in an unalterable format until its eventual disposal. This practice of managing database content is commonly referred to as
database archiving, and it's one approach to implementing ILM.
Database archiving facilitates the migration of historical data to appropriate media in a tiered storage infrastructure. Whether the drivers are application performance and availability, regulatory compliance, or cost reduction, IT organizations in every industry still benefit from database archiving.
Companies tend to take different approaches to database archiving, and some of these bring disadvantages:
- Some enterprises consider a build-it-yourself strategy, but the time and labor involved often don't justify the undertaking. For example, complex enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications often contain thousands of interrelated database tables, making understanding business processes and classifying data no small task.
- Conversely, some enterprise software programs have archival features built in. Such features address the immediate need of a single application but can't scale to address the multiple applications, databases and platforms present in the enterprise.
- Native database tools are an option for some; however, the functionality of such tools is limited and lacks higher-level policies to help drive and automate archiving. Such tools can serve to increase IT complexity as multiple databases are used. That's where today's database archiving solutions can help.
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