Iron Mountain RIM360° Managing Paper and Digital Files

Iron Mountain Incorporated introduced its Records and Information Management 360° Solution enabling organizations to  centralize the management of physical and electronic records.

This makes it easier to apply one set of policies that govern access rights, retention periods and destruction protocols, regardless of where information is stored. As a result, organizations can find records faster, lower risks of noncompliance and cut storage costs. One early customer is Microsoft Corp., which adopted the solution to manage their physical and electronic records inventory.

“The unified view provided by this solution is critical from a business process perspective, providing the ability to seamlessly organize, access and apply policies across all of our content,” said Nishan DeSilva, senior director, Information Management and Compliance, Microsoft. “By integrating both physical and electronic content through Iron Mountain, we can improve productivity to our business users and gain tighter control over our information for compliance, electronic discovery and disposition purposes.”

At the heart of the solution is Accutrac 360° for SharePoint, Iron Mountain’s software for managing multiple paper and electronic record inventories, whether they’re stored with the customer or with storage vendors. Now, through a partnership with Gimmal LLC, Accutrac is integrated with SharePoint so customers can use Iron Mountain’s records management platform to classify SharePoint records and apply legal holds and retention periods. Gimmal, a maker of information lifecycle solutions for SharePoint, signed a partnership agreement with Iron Mountain in July 2011.

By integrating Accutrac and Gimmal, the Iron Mountain Records and Information Management 360° Solution extends native SharePoint functionality to deliver capabilities for consistent classification and management of physical and electronic records, a prerequisite for accessing information quickly, meeting compliance requirements, and being prepared for litigation or a disaster/data loss event.

Specifically, it delivers:

• Visibility – Records inventory can be centralized through SharePoint, regardless of whether it’s in a physical or electronic format or stored onsite, within SharePoint, with Iron Mountain or with another vendor.
• Reliability – Using SharePoint as the unified ‘system of record’ allows the application of policy across all records and all parts of the organization, eliminating inconsistencies in adoption.
• Control – Policies for how long an organization keeps a record for business, compliance or litigation reasons can be standardized and enforced, including an automated, auditable process for destruction.

“Information is the most important asset of any organization, but its explosive growth and diverse formats undermine its inherent value,” said Richard Wilder, SVP, Core Applications and Consulting for Iron Mountain. “If you don’t know what you have, where it is, who requires access to it and how long you need to keep it, you can’t run your business efficiently and ensure the organization is ready to comply with data-privacy regulations and respond to litigation. We developed the Iron Mountain Records and Information Management 360° Solution because our customers need tools for simplifying the management of disparate records inventories, physical, electronic, onsite and offsite. The more companies can adopt uniform practices for classifying, storing and destroying records, the better they’ll realize the full value of their information.“

In addition to upgraded Accutrac 360°for SharePoint,
RIM360° Solution combines:

• Consulting Services – Consultants first assess customers’ existing records programs and recommend changes for bringing physical and electronic records under one unified policy framework;
• Information Management Services – The consultation also prescribes document shredding, destruction of magnetic drives and other IT assets, data backup and recovery, document scanning and other services needed to successfully implement that policy.