Main Reason Companies Classify Data is Access Control

A recent survey conducted by Storage Expo found that one of the main reasons companies classify data was access control (67%) the second reason was retention control (21%) and the third was retrieval and discovery (12%). Access control may be the key reason to classify data; however Alan Pelz- Sharpe, Principal, CMS Watch believes companies should place more importance on the impact of retrieval and discovery with costs in this area reaching £1,000,000 per Terabyte.

He says: “Typically 80% of mail data consists of duplication. Yet any search tool has to treat each piece of data equally, thus slowing down the process and pushing discovery costs through the roof.”

He goes on to add: “ We estimate that the cost of 1GB of storage is about 10p, however the cost of legal discovery on 1GB of storage would cost at least £1000, so storing everything may seem cheap on the one hand, but can become very expensive should something go wrong.”

Pelz- Sharpe will be chairing a Keynote session on the subject of ‘Email Management and Archive- How to Spend Wisely’ on the 16th of October at Storage Expo 2008.

Theresa Regali, Principal, CMS Watch, says: “Increasingly, data classification is determined based on intended use of data, rather than simply its subject matter or source. Classification is vital to ensure data doesn’t fall into the wrong hands and security protocols are met and to facilitate enterprise-wide search, retrieval and discovery”.

Theresa Regali will chair a keynote session on Data Classification: Can anyone really do it at Storage Expo on the 15th of October. This session explores the criteria and policies that should be in place to assure coherent classification with respect to information value as it passes through its lifecycle. Key challenges addressed include managing information lifecycle value, meeting retention, discovery and recovery needs and determining appropriate classification schemes.

Speakers at the session include:

Bob Plumridge, Member of the Board of Directors, SNIA Europe.
Edward Wood, Director of Information Services, House of Commons Library.

With two days of stimulating and thought provoking seminars that reflect the needs of today’s data storage professionals and information management experts, Storage Expo 2008 gives you the chance to improve and update your storage and information management strategies.

Sessions that focus on Data Classification and Email Management include:

Email Management beyond Archiving by Ken Hughes, CTO, C2C.
The problem with archived data and how to solve it by Alec Bruce, Solutions Manager, Hitachi Data Systems.
Information Lifecycle Management by Shahbaz Ali, CEO and Founder, TARMIN.