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Archiving content and data is important. Many small companies are discovering that archiving can be complex and expensive. It doesn’t have to be.

Digital files requiring archive can include practically anything.

Archives may comprise business transactions, database records, documents, images, video and audio.

Government mandates such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (corporate governance), Security and Exchange Commission SEC rules and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) or others, specify which types of records that corporations, financial firms and healthcare providers are required to archive over varying durations. In addition, long-term preservation of content for historical reasons may be necessary, as well as safeguards for disaster recovery.

Whatever rationale compels the need to have good archive practices, there are often multiple considerations and decisions related to technologies, methods, life-cycles and cost.

For archiving digital data, three recording technologies are commonly used:

• RAID hard-drive storage (on-line)
  
  
• Magnetic recording tape (off-line)
  
  
• Optical discs (near-line and off-line)

Large corporations with internal IT departments and hundreds of employees using PCs and laptops, require careful planning and integration when deploying comprehensive archive solutions.

Many small companies rely on available servers used in day-to-day operations to store archives. Archives are then recorded to magnetic tape for back-up – often with other files unrelated to archives per se.

Some firms chose to retain archives on servers to reduce access time, while duplicate files are usually recorded to magnetic tape.

Others may record archives to tape and delete server files. But locating archives on magnetic tape can be time-consuming due to tape’s non-random access characteristics. Also, magnetic tape used to preserve critical archives for extended periods of time can be risky. Tape degrades over time and data recorded on magnetic tape will eventually become unreadable.

Mirroring archives across a network at dispersed geographical locations for retention in different storage systems is a method to accomplish archive redundancy.

Server and RAID costs continue to drop in price, as storage capacities increase. RAID systems use fixed hard-drives, with most having operating lives between 36 and 60 months.

For many companies, decisions related to archiving often default to the lowest possible storage cost – often without consideration of options, including cost-of-ownership over time.

High-speed network connections allow large archives to ‘migrate’ from obsolete servers to new ones. Although migrating archives from server-to-server over time is plausible - can archives be immune to data corruption in the process?

Will archives stored on remote network servers, outlive the companies that created software and hardware used to manage the archives?

Optical WORM library systems

The term Write-Once/Read-Many or ‘WORM’ technology was introduced in the mid-1980s with the advent of optical recording media.

Over the past two decades, WORM optical technology morphed into 5.25 inch CD-R media and today’s dual-sided DVD-R discs capable of storing 9.4GB. Next generation write-once optical media, writers and readers using blue-violet lasers, will have storage capacities varying from 25GB to 50GB per disc.

WORM optical technology engineered into robotic disc library or ‘jukebox’ storage systems are capable of storing hundreds of discs and terabytes of data (using DVD media) and have been utilized in commercial archive applications for some twenty years within banking, finance and insurance, as well as medical imaging and across government.

From about 2003, optical WORM used for archive storage in jukebox systems became less cost-effective in some commercial archive applications. Key factors include:

• The advent of low-cost RAID combined with increasing storage capacities (as measured by cost per gigabyte stored in a physical footprint) resulted in RAID crossing a threshold that saw storage costs drop below optical library systems for the first time.
  
  
• Standard PC and server operating systems do not directly support library robotics, as well as disc and file level administration in optical jukeboxes. Typically, middleware software is acquired from third parties to operate optical libraries. With few exceptions, optical jukebox manufacturers don’t supply their own library management software.
  
  Optical library management software has historically comprised forty to fifty percent of a library’s purchase price. Software maintenance fees add around another four percent annually. Alternatively, RAID and server storage have file management embedded into systems without additional cost.
  
  
• Libraries are connected to a PC or server where middleware software is installed. On-board server storage is used for buffering. Libraries are accessed through a LAN if required. File management and network I/O are not embedded directly into library systems. Consequently, the server requirement adds some cost.
  
  
• Jukebox robotics are stable, reliable and have high MTBF measurements. Internals are modular and easy to service. Installing most optical libraries is relatively simple and can be accomplished by IT personnel, or savvy end-users. Third-party installation firms are often contracted to accomplish library installs, server and middleware.

WORM library systems remain in use and continue to be deployed in commercial archive applications where write-once and data permanence requirements are preferred, required or mandated using removable media. These include medical imaging and some applications within government and finance.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW A SHORT VIDEO CLIP OF LIBRARY ROBOTICS

Don’t dismiss the potential of next-generation WORM optical library systems for archive.

With new high-capacity blue-violet optical media just around the corner, today's DVD library systems capable of 6 terabytes of storage capacity – could leap to 40 terabytes or more within the same footprint by using new blue-violet media.

If optical library manufacturers integrate high-speed network connections, robotic and file management software, as well as storage buffering directly into next-generation optical libraries, the economics and market environment could change and make libraries the solution of choice for long-term WORM archive. Optical libraries require only a fraction of electricity to store and retrieve archives as compared to spinning hard-drives.

Combining low-cost RAID and DVD optical discs for cost-effective archive solutions.

Combining current RAID storage systems with standard DVD write-once optical media - without using robotic libraries - can provide many businesses with cost-effective digital archive solutions.

Archives initially stored on standard RAID systems for specified periods of time, can allow fast access to new archives. Duration parameters can then initiate a process whereby archives stored on RAID are automatically recorded to DVD ‘write-once’ optical media and printed with disc identification and/or serialization labels.

Discs are then moved to an off-line storage area for manual and infrequent retrieval. If fast on-line access performance is desired, select archives can remain on RAID as well.

Storing long-term archives on write-once optical media such as DVD-R is the way to go. Data written to DVD-R media cannot be:

• Altered
  
  
• Modified
  
  
• Erased

Data recorded and finalized to DVD-R media, is physically impossible to change.

Life expectancy of the media is very long. It’s measured in decades – not years. Please go to our DISC HANDLING-ENVIRONMENTAL-STORAGE-ARCHIVE page for in-depth information about long-term archiving, disc storage and disc life expectancies.

Because DVD-R media is an industry standard and endorsed by the official DVD Forum, discs have long been utilized in commercial archive applications crossing many industries. And, due to the popularity of DVD-R media with consumer products and personal computers, multiple manufacturers produce discs at low cost.

If you have archive requirements requiring solutions that won’t break the bank, call Lighthouse Digital Media to discuss your project.

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