Data archiving still confusing

Firms still haven't grasped the concept of compliance, storage vendor warns

Data archiving continues to be misunderstood or ineffectively adopted, according to a report commissioned by vendor BridgeHead Software.

In a study of 165 businesses, 23 per cent of respondents admitted they do not archive data and said that retrieving a file lost three months ago would be a “hit or miss” affair.

Patrick Dowling, senior vice-president of corporate marketing at BridgeHead Software, said: “Despite the relentless use of the compliance buzzword, it seems that out in the field, only a minority of IT directors feel affected by new regulations.”

Among other results from the report, 61 per cent preferred tape storage, 52 per cent opted for disk and 22 per cent chose optical formats.

Eric Sheppard, research manager for European storage systems at IDC, said: “Businesses are becoming more proactive about archiving. It’s no surprise to see tape as the favourite medium.”

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