The final blog entry in our series discussing data archiving best practices centers around categorizing archived data and setting a retention period for each category.
Data retention policies are a critical component of data archiving. Once you have a data retention policy, enforce it for all the information you have on your network. You should also record the retention periods, both for distribution to users and as part of the legal defensibility record. The retention schedule does not need to be elaborate, but it should include specifics about the various categories and associated retention periods. When creating a written schedule, organizations should focus on two main criteria: the maximum retention periods and data distribution.
As part of a data retention policy, you should set minimum retention periods and maximum retention periods, in order to avoid over-retention. You can either include specific maximum retention periods for each category, or you can include a general clause that when the minimum retention period expires, the company no longer retains the data. This maximum retention period should also address the disposal of any currently retained data, including information archived under an interim infinite retention period.
Once you establish your archival retention periods, distribute the information to all users, both to communicate policy and to address the storage habits of individual users. In cases where individual employees use a variety of different email programs or in cases where it is common for users to archive e-mail messages, the retention schedule should make clear that this is not “retention” for purposes of the organization.
Organizations can meet legal preservation obligations with interim archiving, regardless of whether a complete retention policy is in place. Litigation requires that a company be immediately able to preserve and retain information (also known as instituting a legal hold) as soon as it reasonably anticipates litigation or governmental action.
Simply moving information into an archive does not constitute effective information management. In order to gain the highest benefit from archiving, companies should categorize all archived information, setting retention periods for each category. Well established retention periods with automated, effective, and easy-to-use archiving systems create streamlined, customized, and uncomplicated data preservation systems.
We hope you’ve enjoyed our series on data archiving and have found it informative. Let’s recap below the 5 data archiving best practices we’ve discussed over the last 5 posts.
