Organizations depend on their IT teams to find and restore data that was archived for historical purposes in order to recall the conditions, discussions, decisions, and results of the past. Digital archiving is required in many industries to comply with government regulations for storing financial, customer and patient information. For example, the health care industry is required to keep patient records for many years in order to inform future health care providers of a patient’s history of conditions, diagnosis, and treatment. Many businesses that do not have explicit regulations governing digital archiving have defined internal policies and best practices that archive data for legal reasons because courts expect companies to produce internal records when they are requested. As businesses, governments, societies, and individuals increase their dependence on data, archiving it becomes more important.
This article discusses the technologies used for digital archiving and describes how the Microsoft hybrid cloud solution (HCS) can be used to archive data to Windows Azure Storage.
For the right reasons, digital archiving is a growing concern for most IT teams due to the necessity and challenges of complying with regulations and policies. IT teams are looking for solutions that help them comply with regulations and reduce the cost of archiving by reducing the cost of archival storage and by automating the process.
Digital archiving is a growing concern for most IT teams due to the necessity and challenges of complying with regulations and policies. IT teams are looking for solutions that help them comply with regulations and reduce the cost of archiving by reducing the cost of archival storage and by automating the process.
The Microsoft HCS solution features Windows Azure Storage and is capable of storing data for many years in compliance with government regulations. Windows Azure has achieved several important compliance milestones including the HIPAA Business Associate Agreement (BAA), ISO/IEC 27001:2005 certifications and SSAE 16/ISAE 3402 attestations.
Cloud snapshot policies determine the length of time that data is retained in the cloud and are easily customized to fit a wide variety of data retention requirements. IT teams can choose to archive data in place or in special archive volumes, or choose to use the Microsoft HCS solution as secondary storage for offloading existing enterprise storage systems. Encryption technology protects privacy, hashing provides data integrity checks, and Windows Azure Storage replication services provides availability and DR protection.