File Under 'Nightmare'

Sidebar: Paper Chase
Since many of today's business processes involve electronic data, records-management experts issue this reminder: don't forget about paper documents when planning a records-retention schedule and policy.

All laws and regulations governing retention apply to both paper documents and electronic data. Some records managers say the notion that automated processes replace paper is a myth. "As our electronic records have increased in volume, the paper records being produced have also increased," says Alan Lybeck, group leader of quality, information, and technology at Guidant Corp. and a certified records manager. "All these electronic systems are actually producing more paper."

Rae Cogar, an attorney who heads RCS Consulting, says a records-retention program should include requirements for safely maintaining paper documents. This includes having the proper environmental controls to preserve documents for very long periods of time.

Sidebar: Not-So-Deep Storage
The growing emphasis on data retention is having an impact on the storage-products market, says Roy Sanford, vice president of content-addressed storage at EMC in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. EMC last year introduced Centera Compliance Edition, a specialized content-addressed storage system designed to help companies meet regulatory requirements for data retention.

Centera, which enables records managers to set retention periods on numerous types of electronic records and tags individual documents with identifiers and time-date stamps to facilitate tracking, quickly became EMC's fastest-growing product line. In 2002 the company sold the equivalent of 4 petabytes of Centera systems to customers. To put that into perspective, Sanford says, that's equal to twice the information stored in the Library of Congress.

Among the companies using the product are an insurance company that's required to keep records on 160 million policies and a financial-services firm that needs to retain 600 million check images. So far, the products have been aimed primarily at companies in heavily regulated industries such as financial services, pharmaceuticals, health care, and life sciences. Charles King, an analyst at the Sageza Group, says that EMC has set a new standard, offering a disk-based storage system specifically optimized for data retention and retrieval. Most archiving systems rely on tape or optical media, which lack sophisticated search functions and other features associated with disk storage.

New companies see an opportunity here as well. Persist Technologies this month came out of the gate with what it bills as a "plug-and-play appliance" designed specifically to archive E-mail, documents, and digital media. The company emphasizes that its product makes fast retrieval of information possible, and cited SEC and NASD requirements for records retention as a prime driver behind its offering. The Enterprise Storage Group, a consulting organization, found that "reference data," which it defines loosely as "any digital asset retained for active reference and value" is piling up at twice the rate of "flat" data at most companies. Reference data tends to entail larger files that need to be accessed more quickly by more people, requires more security/authenticity protection, and must be kept for varying lengths of time. All of that, Enterprise says, will make storage a critical issue for companies in the years ahead.

Sidebar: Tips For Records Retention
While a number of technologies are pivotal to data retention, experts say that it is fundamentally a management issue. Key steps include the following.

• Form an advisory committee consisting of senior financial, business, and IT executives; a records manager; and legal representatives to help develop and maintain a retention and destruction policy and schedule.
• Thoroughly research state and federal laws and industry regulations pertaining to retention to ensure that the company is meeting requirements.
• Periodically update the retention schedule as needed to comply with laws and regulations, and educate employees about the schedule and policy.
• Periodically inspect electronic documents and files, as well as appropriate IT systems to ensure that the storage media and systems are adequate for maintaining data integrity.
• Establish a policy regarding the retention of E-mail messages, based on overall retention policy and legal requirements, and inform all employees about the policy.
• Don't overlook newer mobile devices that may place critical data on laptops or personal digital assistants, as well as employees' home computers.

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