How to curb non-stop data growth

Every CIO is besieged by data that seems to multiply exponentially. This information must be stored somewhere, but the volume and the complexity of interactions in a company make it a huge task, for even the best-trained IT professional. In an interview with Forbes.com Mark Lewis, president of EMC's content management and archiving division, said data only has value if it's organized and you can find it.

"Part of the solution is tiered storage,'' he said. "Where people are complying with regulations and they have to keep it seven years, there's more and more of that on spun-down storage, so there is no power cost. It's about trying to maximize that value.''

He said data must be stored in a readable format like XML and has to have meta tagging. He also said companies should have some fairly complex policies about what's important and what isn't.

"There is no right answer. Some may be time-based. Some may be kept for regulation-compliance purposes,'' said Lewis. "Some may be value-based, which may be how often it's touched. Some might be based upon who created it. If it was created by the chief technology officer, that might have more value than if it was created by someone else in the organization."

For more on data handling:
- see this Forbes.com article

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