SmartStream Launches TLM Archive

SmartStream Technologies Ltd., the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, announced the launch of TLM Archive, a tool that delivers long-term storage and retrieval of transaction data to aid regulatory reporting requirements.

The efficient management of transaction data has been an issue for many firms as regulators increase the time that historical data must be stored for, in some cases up to 15 years. As a result, the volume of data that accumulates over that period of time can be huge.

Keeping that historic data within the active production database for a long period of time increases costs as data volumes increase and affects system performance. The response times for on-line searches by users will also deteriorate as the search functions and the underlying database need to sort through much larger volumes of data.

Recognising these issues, SmartStream has developed TLM Archive, a solution that removes historic data from the production system. It delivers an archiving and retrieval tool that works with all TLM business modules, enabling the long-term storage of transactions once their business lifecycle has completed.

Historic data is removed from the active database, indexed and stored in TLM Archive, allowing authorised users to perform inquiries and access related information such as investigations on specific data records, even if it dates back several years. However while it can be retrieved for regulatory reporting and point in time snapshots it cannot be amended nor re-activated by users, helping to ensure full compliance with regulatory requirements.

David Penney, EVP Strategy and Product Development at SmartStream, commented: "Generally firms have been faced with two options for storing their historical data; external storage or a second instance of the production database into which data is transferred after processing. However both are fundamentally flawed approaches, increasing operational costs and complexity. External storage is expensive and inefficient, requiring manual intervention to retrieve data when needed and second instance database needs to be upgraded in line with the production system.

"TLM Archive is a compelling alternative that can deliver a rapid ROI. It provides users with rapid access to historic transaction data, reducing the time required to conduct investigations, whilst improving the performance and response times on the active database. It saves time and money by eliminating the delays involved in retrieving data held on storage media in off-site warehouses. The overall effect is an improvement in exception management and customer service. Users can view their data in a secure environment and inquiries can be executed on both active and archived transactions, giving them all the information they need to make informed decisions."