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About MTC Philosophy Client List Job Openings Reaching MTC MTC Corporate Domestic Sales Int Distributors Info Form More Information Upload Download Literature What's New Tom Talks Press Releases Systems and Hardware 6832 COM Rapid COM Associated Software Document Management COED Module Descriptions IBM/Xerox Data Conversion Demos Media Film CD Peripherals Input Output Related Info Industry News Vendor Partners		Archiving on Electronic Storage Is an Oxymoron Walk around the AIIM Show and everyone will be talking about archiving onto some electronic mediaoptical disk, CD-ROM, helical scan tape or whatever the latest whiz bang super density storage device is. What do they mean when they use the word archive? They must mean recording or storing information, because surely they cannot mean truly archiving. Archiving is the process of storing information safely for a long term. Typically, we must archive our business records for at least seven years, though many records live far longer. For example, mortgage information retention is for the length of the loan plus seven years. Medical and military records must span generations, as must many government records. A business product recipes must extend past the life of the products liability. Using airplanes, as an example, retention could be forty or fifty years. Electronic storage is great for immediate access of information, but when it comes to long term retention, one must examine the practicalness of it. First, 99.9% of all information retained is almost never accessed. This information could be classified as WORNWrite Once Read Never. That alone should challenge one to think about why they should store and maintain this information on a Read Fast and Many electronic media. While the cost per megabyte of the raw storage may at first seem inexpensive, the fully loaded cost of managing all that storage can be staggering. And as electronic storage grows, those costs dramatically increase. Also, often ignored is the unwieldy task of maintaining the electronic index to all the information stored electronically. It is not uncommon for these indexes to get out of synch, thus rendering the electronically stored information unavailable. Second, if you need to retain information for a log time, say seven to ten years or more, you can bet that you will face one or more electronic migrations during the retention period to have reasonable assurance of access. Electronic migrations are costly, unbudgeted and unreliable. Often times, the cost to convert all information from one media to another is more expensive than the actual system one desires to employ. Having to factor in the cost of converting all this WORN information often undermines the new systems value and inhibits its installation. And while these mediums are guaranteed to have lives of up to 25 years, that only guarantees to get a replacement disk or tape if the media fails. There is no liability compensation for your lost data. Third, because electronic storage provides random access to information, sequential batch recording is the technique used to store information. Information, however, is rarely viewed in batches, it is viewed by subject file folders. Elements of a file folder are often scattered across multiple tapes or disks, with indexes used to randomly access numerous platters to collect the requested file folder. This works fine as long as all tapes or disks are online or in jukeboxes. If one extends electronic media to the shelf as archival storage, aside from the maintenance and migration issues discussed above, you are facing a formidable librarian challenge. One lost, damaged or misplaced disk can hinder the credibility of thousands of file folders. For many years, we have stored paper or film copies (eye readable formats) of our records to offset the liability of electronic systems. Film has always been the most cost effective eye readable medium, when considering storage costs. Films past limitations of its labor intensity to create and retrieve, as well as intermittent quality issues, have been eliminated. As more information is stored electronically, now automatically sent to film, organized in subjects for the application, fully indexed, and with the same quality that the documents are stored electronically. Labor to organize and film the documents is completely eliminated as these Computer Output Micrographic devices are ready network film printers. One retrieval is all that is needed to fetch a complete file folder. These film images can be digitized and then routed for the appropriate action. Film storage of information eliminates all the technical issues of electronic systems and frees an enterprise to implement todays technology without worrying about migrating yesterdays information. Today, we live with a false sense of security that the issues have been resolved for long-term storage on electronic systems and the need for eye-readable formats have been eliminated. If you were given your title and mortgage closing documents on a CD-ROM when you bought your house, the first thing you would do after the closing is print out the files. Why? Because who knows if youll be able to read that CD in thirty years!