Enterprise Data Management

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Government agencies have struggled for years to become paperless. Now, their success in eliminating paper documents is sparking new data management challenges.

With most of the world's data now created in digital form, government records retention and storage management must adapt to an environment where physical copies no longer exist. What's more, today's government agencies cope with stricter record-keeping and accountability rules--and rapidly escalating costs for violating those mandates.

These demands make storage a strategic issue for agency managers and decision-makers, on par with key enterprise concerns such as network infrastructure and information security, according to a new report from the Center for Digital Government.

The report--Public Trust and Public Value through Effective Stewardship of Public Records--says state and local agencies must deploy strategies for:

• Retaining digital records securely and for as long as required.
  
• Locating digital records when needed.
  
• Proving digital records are accurate and authentic when necessary.
  

Just as important, government agencies need processes that let them safely dispose of data that's outlived its usefulness, the report says. Unnecessary data retention is an expense today's governments can't afford, yet ineffective data management often forces agencies to store information they don't need for fear of violating record-keeping regulations.

Lifecycle Approach
StorageTek's Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) concept prepares government to meet these challenges. ILM creates a sustainable storage strategy that balances the cost of storing and managing information with its changing value over time.

The concept uses sophisticated software to shift electronic records among various tiers of storage based on an agency's business needs for the data.