Archiving Goes to Blazes

6:20 PM -- They say that lightning doesn't strike twice, but try telling that to Iron Mountain, which, within the space of 24 hours earlier this month, dealt with fires at paper storage facilities in Ottawa and London. (See Iron Mountain Feels the Heat.)

Although initial signs suggest that a small number of records were affected in Ottawa, the damage at the London site was significant, with Iron Mountain describing the 126,000 square foot facility as a "total loss."

The two events, however, raise serious questions about data archiving. Despite all the hype about electronic content management and online backup over the last few years, paper still remains a major tool for many businesses. (See Online Backup Services: Weighing Their Worth.) Iron Mountain, for example, says that its paper records business is growing substantially at the moment. As Melissa Mahoney, Iron Mountain's director of corporate communications told me yesterday, "Paper is not going away."

But what is the next step for companies that had data stored at the London site? The devil, it would appear is in the details.

Any compensation in this type of situation, according to Mahoney, is decided on a contract-by-contract basis. "The price that we charge for storage of these paper records, which is pennies per box, does not allow us to assume a high level of liability for those records," adds the spokeswoman.In Ottawa, however, the damage was much less severe. Mahoney confirmed that Iron Mountain is covering the cost of record "remediation" for affected customers. This essentially involves restoring documents, that for example, may have been damaged by the water used to fight the fire.

Clearly, compensation and liability are things that users need to consider before they sign on the dotted line for off-site archiving services. What may look like a boring file box now may look a damn sight more important when a regulator or a lawyer comes a-knocking.

The London fire also underlines the need for a tiered archiving strategy, where multiple (and, if necessary, electronic) copies are made of crucial data. Firms should not put all their archiving eggs in one basket.

Iron Mountain would not reveal the identities of affected customers to Byte and Switch, and the firm says that, at this stage, it is still too early to measure the financial impact of the London fire.

Nonetheless, if CIOs and CFOs do opt for paper records, they should do some serious thinking about worst case scenarios. Users need to think about the level of compensation they would be entitled to in the event of massive data loss at their archiving partner and the possible long term impact on their own businesses. It may be that no amount of compensation would be enough, especially when the SEC starts breathing down your neck and asking for those missing accounts.Iron Mountain, which is no stranger to storage snafus, has already had to rethink its own encryption story, and pointed its customers in the direction of Decru to secure their own tapes. (See Iron Mountain Encrypts Itself, Dobson Buys Brand Name, and Iron Mountain Keeps Truckin'.)

But the downside to all this encryption, of course, is the cost. Paper-based records are undoubtedly cheaper than their electronic counterparts, but can your business live with the risks? Only you can make the call.

With more and more firms -- particularly in the financial sector -- feeling the heat of regulatory pressure, now is not the time for your records to be going up in smoke. If you don't get your arms around this issue, then your career could end up toast as well.

James Rogers, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch