Cloud Archive & Long-term Preservation Challenges and Best Practices (2012)

Unstructured data explosion, internal company policies and compliance regulations are redefining the way organizations store and manage their information. As a result, more and more companies are being required to archive data for a decade or longer. The amount of storage space required for the archived data grows each year; increasing the need for investments in storage for data that needs to be retained and preserved to meet the business requirements. Enter Cloud storage, which promises to provide access independence, improved capacity elasticity and lower up-front capital expense in comparison to traditional in-house storage models. SNIA has developed a Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI) specification to help both companies and customers take the most advantage of cloud storage. To this end, the Cloud Archive and Preservation Special Interest Group (CA&P SIG) has developed our own definitions and profiles for different Cloud Digital Archive Services that take advantage of the CDMI specification. This session will address the work the CA&P SIG is doing to identify the challenges and best practices of storing data in the Cloud for long term, including how to describe the different levels of archiving and preservation services offered by cloud providers using the SNIA CDMI specification as a reference. Additionally, this session will compare the different services profiles and specifically, the CDMI specification attributes applicable to each profile. Topics will include: • The SNIA definition of Cloud Digital Archive and Long Term Preservation (as opposed to Cloud Backup or Cloud Storage) • The challenges of providing Cloud Archival services including the lack of adoption of industry standards, the issue of cloud data migration, digital auditing of archived data, legal and regulatory frameworks • The business case for a Cloud Digital Archive Service • How CDMI Cloud Service Profiles help cloud archive users and providers identify the level of service needed for Digital Cloud Archive, Digital Preservation Cloud and Backup Cloud Services.

Learning Objectives

How to use important differences between the functional capabilities of a digital archive compared to those of a digital preservation service to differentiate your organization's offerings
How CDMI will enable cloud-based services to support digital archive or digital preservation services
Why these differences are important to your success in protecting information from loss or damage for compliance, litigation, or as important history as authentic over its retention period