Archives were predominantly implemented for regulatory compliance and for intellectual property protection.
While this data must be retrievable, it is not implied that the information will be actively available to end users. Often, as is true with paper-based archives as well, an intermediary step is required to retrieve archived data. In the digital world, this often rests on the shoulders of the IT department.
It's why Active Archive is now changing the code , why ?
Active archive clearly differ:
- these solutions present all data as online and available to end users regardless of the data’s age or usage. The latency for data retrieval may increase as its use decreases, but at no point does an administrator have to get involved for an end user to retrieve archived data.
- The second differentiator is less obvious, but equally as important when differentiating active archives from traditional archives. The data stored in an active archive is actively moved between storage platforms to meet storage requirements set by the archive software’s policies. Hence data may reside on tape until its retrieved, at which time it may make more sense to migrate it to a lower latency platform such as disk or solid state. This policy-driven data movement within an active archive optimizes storage platform use, which provides the cost savings and availability that make active archives so attractive.
If you want to know more, have a look to this complete report :
Jessica@Nodeum