Storage Gets on Record

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Storage Networking World (SNW) -- If you're a storage manager worried about e-discovery and ILM, you need to seek out a records manager -- if your organization's got one.

That was part of the message during a panel this afternoon at SNW, in which two managers certified by Association of Records Managers and Administrators (ARMA) shared their views alongside storage managers from the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) .

Indeed, a key purpose of the panel was to illustrate collaboration between the two groups that's resulted in a six-page best-practices document -- a first step in what panelists describe as a daunting task.

The crux of the problem emerged immediately, when moderator John Webster of Illuminata Inc. asked representatives of both sides to define ILM. For the ITers, the term means moving data across tiers of storage based on business rules. But the records managers aren't as caught up in speeds and feeds. "We are concerned about information that is a record, and how it is managed over time as content," said Jenny Jolinski, a certified records manager who works for Darden Restaurants. A record can be anything from email to a scanned copy of a paper document.

Panelists were agreed that the two sides -- IT and records managers -- need to find one another and start trying to understand each other. This isn't easy, they noted, since many large organizations don't have records managers on board, and many that do apparently don't see any reason to get them to collaborate with IT.Jolinski and another panelist on the IT side, Wendy Betts of Hewitt Associates, shared stories of how they had personally taken the initiative to find and start a dialogue to get things going.

Unless collaboration is attempted, IT and records managers may find themselves at odds, especially when compliance issues clash with the need to optimize storage. What happens, for instance, when IT chooses to destroy data on schedule that is, in fact, part of a record that needs to be retained? Does moving data from one part of tiered storage to another change its status as a compliant record?

There are no easy answers, and it looks as though there are even deeper problems. One audience member, for example, wanted to know how records managers cope with information that exists in complicated databases. How can one item be retained in a relational database without forcing the rest of the data to be saved -- or vice versa?

Another audience member suggested that more participants are required in any dialog aimed at ensuring solid data retention for compliance and e-discovery. "You're missing some key people," he said. "DBAs, application architects are missing at this conference. If you're defining an ILM strategy, they need to be pulled in."

Panelists acknowledged collaboration is still in its infancy. Apparently, though, there's a sense that it's worth it to start talking. "You've already got a lot of history [in ARMA]," said one audience member. As SNIA and vendors try to develop better ILM strategies, it only makes sense to consult those who've already established a plan for defining different kinds of content and determining a retention schedule.Mary Jander, Site Editor, Byte and Switch