A huge part of today's compliance and regulatory body of law focuses on keeping data and records from company information to email communications. As experts relate, record retention is a thankless job that few tech leaders embrace with passion or enthusiasm, but it can be financially dangerous to ignore the task. There are some good steps to getting retention programs in place that won't sap resources. One is mapping out a definition of "record" as it applies to regulations you need to meet and investigating what the storage requirements are for your organization. Then you have to figure out how to retrieve data if it does come under scrutiny, as regulatory agencies typically aren't too patient once they subpoena files. And, as with any IT effort, you need to build a strong and comprehensive policy that doesn't get shoved into a drawer when it's completed.

For more on good data-record retention:
- read this article [1] at CSOonline