ABSTRACT

Invariably, long-term retention refers to “compliance” copies of data that authors must retain for legal, fiduciary, or other mandatory requirements. Sometimes these requirements may be imposed internally from the business, but more usually they are imposed externally by a government or some other body with authority over the business. Effective consideration of long-term retention requirements starts with understanding the legal obligations, and establishing a level of data lifecycle management, as well. There is however another pre-requisite to effectively dealing with long-term retention, however: data classification. Using snapshots for long-term retention (e.g., keeping monthly snapshots for 7 years) is perhaps one of the most efficient ways to sign-up for vendor lock-in possible, regardless of whether it’s occurring on-premises, or in the public cloud. Recalling the sheer volume of data that misconfigured long-term retention policies can generate, rationalization and reduction of those long-term copies can result in a far more cost effective migration process between backup products.