Data archiving involves moving inactive data to a separate storage device for long-term retention. A data archive is usually indexed and includes search capabilities that help locate and retrieve information easily. It is stored in low-cost storage tiers, reducing the consumption and costs of primary storage.
Organizations usually archive older data needed for future reference or compliance purposes. The first step in the process is creating a data archiving strategy. This step helps organizations inventory their data and locate data suitable for archiving.
There is a wide range of data archiving solutions, each offering different capabilities. Some solutions protect archive data from modification by treating the information as read-only. However, other solutions enable writes in addition to reads.
This is part of our series of articles about cloud backup services.
In this article:
Data backup and archiving solutions differ in how you scan, organize, and store data. You should choose a solution based on the use case for your data, which determines the storage duration and ease of access required.
Backups are copies of active operational data that you need to access or modify regularly. Creating a backup doesn’t affect the original data, which remains in the same location. You can use backup files to restore data to previous points in the event of data loss or corruption.
Backups require a shorter storage duration than archive files, with the backup system updating the data frequently. Backup systems typically use a simple storage system, searching files by name, not content.
Archives are long-term data repositories for non-critical information, such as regulatory compliance data retained for legal purposes. Archival data is typically inactive and does not require frequent access or modification. You don’t need to store archival files in regular storage to maintain normal operations, allowing you to save on storage costs.
Archival storage solution users typically search for data across multiple files, servers, and time frames, retrieving archive files based on content rather than location or name. Data searchability for archives is thus more complex compared to backup systems.
Data archiving solutions also require a high degree of long-term data integrity compared to backups. The large scale of data increases the risk of issues such as data corruption over time (bit rot). You need to apply mechanisms to protect archival data against corruption and deletion.
Related content: Read our guide to backup strategy
Here are key advantages of data archiving tools:
Here are notable features of data archiving solutions:
You should research, evaluate, and compare different vendors and archiving services to find the right fit for your organization. Look for these key features when choosing a data archiving solution:
Different data archiving systems and deployments can offer different advantages for various use cases, so you look for a solution that offers multiple options. A large enterprise with a strong IT department might prefer to use on-premises solutions that offer greater control over the archiving process. On the other hand, a small or medium-sized organization might not have the capacity to maintain an in-house archive, opting instead to use a cloud-based or hybrid archiving system.
If you opt for a hardware solution, you need to ensure it uses fault-tolerant technologies to prevent data loss and disk failures. Look for solutions that allow you to scale easily.
Scheduling automatic deletion and maintaining granular retention policies can help reduce human error and make it easier to manage your policies. In addition, cloud-based solutions often limit the retention period, and may charge extra for longer retention periods. Make sure that the retention capabilities of your solution match your organization’s policies and the compliance requirements for your data.
Your organization likely has a large volume of historical data that you need to retain—this data might be stored in one separate system or distributed over several systems. Choose a data archiving software that lets you migrate existing data from your legacy systems, preserve data integrity, and avoid compatibility issues.
NetApp understands ONTAP better than anyone else, which is why the best backup solution for ONTAP systems is NetApp Cloud Backup. Designed by NetApp specifically for ONTAP, Cloud Backup automatically creates block-level incremental forever backups. These copies are stored in object format and preserve all ONTAP’s storage efficiencies. Your backups are 100X faster to create, easy to restore, and much more reliable than with any other solution.
Cloud Backup simplifies the entire backup process. It’s intuitive, quick to deploy, and managed from the same console as the rest of the NetApp cloud ecosystem. Whether you’re looking for a less expensive way to store your backups, a faster, more capable technology than NDMP, or an easy way to enable a 3-2-1 strategy, Cloud Backup offers the best backup solution for ONTAP.
Learn more about the NetApp Cloud Backup capabilities here, and find out more in our Cloud Backup Service Customers’ Case Studies.