Best File Archiving Solutions

Speed of service and productivity are important aspects of business today. How fast and efficient a company’s operating systems function are a huge part of keeping companies competitive in the marketplace. New solutions, upgrades, patches, etc. are continually being offered to keep operating systems running quickly, efficiently, and securely. This makes some older solutions somewhat obsolete. Keeping these older solutions on your servers as part of your regular ecosystem can significantly slow programs or operating systems down and cause them not to function as effectively and productively as possible.

Some purposes for archiving include:

1. To reduce the amount of “space” or “weight” on an operating system.
2. To make a large amount of coordinating data more compact and portable.
3. To protect and preserve vulnerable data or files and ensure all historical documentation and record of the data is stored for later review or to meet compliance regulations.
4. Archiving can also be a security measure to limit the amount of access to critical data and ensure a higher level of accountability to who can view, edit, or use the archived data.

Absolutely! Many operating systems today will have a set, prescribed schedule to monitor the amount of available space on their servers. These regular processes will quickly identify unused, inactive, or unnecessary data and designate that data to be archived to free up space on servers and to ensure all operating systems can run as smoothly and efficiently as possible. Archiving will combine and collate large amounts of latent data and coordinate that data into one large file. The data will then be compressed together securely. The space made available by consistently archiving files will ensure your operating system is running as designed and will also make it possible to freely add new solutions to your operating system and servers as they become necessary.

The ability to delete archived files may be dependent on the solution and the chosen attributes used to archive the file. The archived file may have been given attributes meant to protect the file in a way that makes it impossible to casually delete. It is important to consider whether an archived file should be deleted.

Even though a file has been archived, it does not mean the file is unimportant. There may be valuable, critical data paramount to the overall needs of an organization in the archived files that make it essential that all the files stay intact and protected. It is also possible that securely maintaining an archived file long-term is required by local, state, or even federal compliance guidelines, which could be a reason certain archived files would have been given attributes to specify they should be protected and not able or easily able to delete.

“File ready for archiving” generally means that a file has been prepared and cleansed, that permissions and attributes have been designated, and that it is ready to be archived. When archiving a file, it is important to ensure it is working properly, all coordinated files have been linked, and the data is free of any threats or risks. There are archiving solutions available that will provide guidelines to facilitate the grouping together of all the data in order to ensure an efficient, correct archiving process.

There are several places where archived files can be stored. Archived files can be stored on HDD, SSD, tape, and in the cloud. Even though it is the same amount of data, once it has been relocated and compressed, it takes up significantly less space, so it can even be kept on the same server. Depending on the set attributes of the archived file may determine where it is to be stored. Today, there are many secure, effective solutions available that will also easily monitor and assist in grouping and collating all essential data, metadata, and all pertinent additional information needed to create the best file to be archived and that will provide space for its storage. As in many situations, these solutions are available both on-premises and in the cloud.

When a file is archived, all data that has had a function working together in a program or solution will be grouped together and accurately collated to make a large, secure, protected file. This data will then be compressed to make one complete file. This data can still be easily accessible when desired; it has just been compressed to take up less room on the server or operating system. Creating an archived file can also make it easier to send large amounts of data via email or make vital data or programs easier to download and unpack.

File archiving solutions should include many or all of the following features:

• Provides low-cost, high-efficiency storage for data retention
• Unified, centralized storage for data from disparate sources
• Automated data retention and retrieval
• Data is tamper-proof due to restrictions of ability to modify it
• Automated classification system for the retention or discarding of data
• Application of metadata for ease of search, categorization, supervision, and discovery
• Access controls that support biometrics, role-requirements, etc.
• Granular retention of files with additional meta-data, information, and documentation, making it easier to locate files quickly
• Employee self-service, search & report generation, with access log
• Daily reconciliation reporting
• Storage integrity
• Ensures meeting of regulatory and compliance requirements

The benefits of file archiving software include:

• Reduced costs for maintenance and operation due to storage of data on high-capacity, low-performance media.

• Increased performance due to the regular removal of unused, out-of-date data from your server.
  
• Prevention of data loss due to the reduced ability to modify data.
  
• Increased security due to the removal of documents from circulation, which limits the chance of cyberattack or malware infection.

• Better backup and restore performance due to reduced size of backups and elimination for the restoration of unnecessary files.
• Regulatory compliance - The solution’s built-in policies will ensure that all compliance regulations are being met in a timely manner and that data is stored long-term and indexed for retrieval when necessary.