Nice reminder from Underground Valuts … perhaps you may want to do something similar for your clients

Posted on Dec 4, 2009 in Records Management News

http://undergroundvaults.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/year-end-vital-records-storage-reminder/

Under­ground Vaults and Stor­age, Inc.

Decem­ber 2, 2009

Year End Vital Records Storage Reminder

As we approach the end of the year, Under­ground Vaults & Stor­age, Inc would like to remind busi­nesses of the impor­tance of vital records stor­age and asset pro­tec­tion.  Under­ground Vaults & Stor­age, has been a val­ued provider of these ser­vices for over fifty years.  Busi­nesses from around the world rely on the exper­tise and knowl­edge of our expe­ri­ence.  We pro­vide secure, acces­si­ble, and cost effi­cient stor­age for your information.

Our stor­age options are eco­nom­i­cal and pro­vide your busi­ness with the ulti­mate in off site stor­age.  With no monthly min­i­mums, UV&S offers a more cost effec­tive solu­tion than most other stor­age alter­na­tives, includ­ing mini stor­age units.  We can accom­mo­date your records stor­age and infor­ma­tion man­age­ment needs with our highly trained staff and mul­ti­tude of ser­vices and stor­age options available.

Under­ground Vaults & Stor­age, Inc (UV&S) is a privately-held infor­ma­tion and records man­age­ment com­pany estab­lished in 1959, oper­at­ing three under­ground and three above ground secure stor­age facil­i­ties.  It is per­haps known best for stor­ing mil­lions of items includ­ing movie film, data tapes, and paper records, within a 650-foot deep salt mine in Kansas.

Feel free to con­tact any of our sales rep­re­sen­ta­tives for a free con­sul­ta­tion and eval­u­a­tion of your infor­ma­tion man­age­ment and stor­age needs.

Com­pli­ments of File­Man Research

Cary

_____________________________________________________

Cary F. McGov­ern, CRM

File­Man

BARE METAL Reflections from Storage Guardian Blog

Posted on Dec 4, 2009 in Records Management News

Expert tips: busi­ness doc­u­ment reten­tion guidelines

Posted By Dave Minns

Small and medium-sized busi­nesses are cur­rently fac­ing a ‘data tsunami’ forced on them by reg­u­la­tory preser­va­tion and com­pli­ance rules that dic­tate how they must man­age elec­tron­i­cally stored infor­ma­tion. What’s the best strat­egy for man­ag­ing this com­plex problem?

The paper­less office will prob­a­bly never hap­pen. But while paper still clut­ters our desks, it’s the elec­tronic paper trail that is prov­ing harder for most busi­nesses to man­age. What should you do with the paper and elec­tronic busi­ness records your busi­ness accu­mu­lates each year? What has to be kept year after year, what can be destroyed or dis­posed of as soon as possible?

The IRS needs this, state law says that, fed­eral laws say some­thing else. And, depend­ing on the indus­try in which you work, the lat­est com­pli­ance reg­u­la­tions demand that you pre­serve cer­tain information.

Once you fig­ure out WHAT to keep, you need to decide HOW to keep it. Should you scan the paper doc­u­ments into the com­puter? Or should you print out all the elec­tronic cor­re­spon­dence and doc­u­ments? As you weigh these deci­sions you need to fac­tor in the cost of off-site paper stor­age, and the amount of hard­copy ver­sus soft­copy you will need to retain.

Once you have estab­lished the best pol­icy for doc­u­ments, you’ll need to next think about email, IM, voice mes­sages, and even SMS mes­sages. What to keep? And for how long? What can be purged imme­di­ately? These new forms of cor­re­spon­dence can gen­er­ate far more vol­ume than ‘reg­u­lar’ correspondence.

Acces­si­bil­ity is another dimen­sion to the prob­lem — what you will have to pro­duce for audi­tors or researchers if you have an IRS audit, lit­i­ga­tion dis­cov­ery or human resource issue. This may require you to go through paper files for prior years and elec­tronic files from this time for­ward. The cost of such a dis­cov­ery process of audit needs to be man­aged, both finan­cially and in terms of its impact on your busi­ness’ productivity.

Stor­age Guardian has been man­ag­ing the preser­va­tion and reten­tion of business-critical elec­tronic records of com­pa­nies for the past 10 years. As a result, we’ve devel­oped some guide­lines that apply to most busi­nesses – but make sure to check with a legal expert famil­iar with the spe­cific fed­eral /state leg­is­la­tion for your industry.

Read more here:               http://www.storageguardian.com/blog/expert-tips-business-document-retention-guidelines-2

Com­pli­ments of File­Man Research

Cary

_____________________________________________________

Cary F. McGov­ern, CRM

File­Man

Challenges to Data Retention

Posted on Dec 4, 2009 in Records Management News

http://fix-email-errors.com/featured/challenges-to-data-retention

Chal­lenges to Data Retention

Sub­mit­ted by on Decem­ber 4, 2009 – 1:14 am

Record keep­ing is almost as old as human exis­tence! From cave­men paint­ing on cave walls and the ancients writ­ing on papyrus or on their tombs, we have detailed records of their time and their lives. Today, we have more sophis­ti­cated meth­ods of record keep­ing that gen­er­ally involve com­put­ers and dig­i­tal records. But no one could have ever imag­ined the vol­ume, den­sity and com­plex­ity of the records of our times. Our emails are ver­bose and usu­ally con­tain attach­ments; we can even send color pho­tos, videos, pre­sen­ta­tions and doc­u­ments halfway across the globe with a sin­gle click! Our pre­sen­ta­tions, spread­sheets and doc­u­ments are larger, more col­or­ful and include a lot more information.

Another impor­tant char­ac­ter­is­tic of dig­i­tal records is the fact that they do not have a phys­i­cal exis­tence beyond their respec­tive hard drive or stor­age device, thus mak­ing data reten­tion and acces­si­bil­ity very dif­fi­cult. Even more dif­fi­cult is being able to accu­rately and swiftly repro­duce these data when required. As com­puter data can­not be man­aged with­out the help of com­put­ers or some set of machines and code, it is highly depen­dent on the ver­sion of soft­ware it was first cre­ated or stored on. Just imag­in­ing try­ing to open a MS Dos Word­Star doc­u­ment on an Apple Mac­in­tosh iWork pro­gram! This rep­re­sents only a minor chal­lenge on a very small level. Imag­ine the thou­sands and thou­sands of emails, doc­u­ments, pre­sen­ta­tions, finan­cial sum­maries, data­bases etc. that any major insti­tu­tion runs through on a daily basis! There exist major con­cerns about being able to store, access and read such data in a timely and cost effec­tive man­ner over time.

The chal­lenges to data reten­tion don’t just end here for cor­po­ra­tions, NGOs and even gov­ern­men­tal and pub­lic ser­vice agen­cies. There are var­i­ous rules and laws (Sarbanes-Oxley, Fed­eral Rules of Civil Pro­ce­dure) that stip­u­late strict guide­lines on time, form and repro­duc­tion of data. The FRCP requires com­pa­nies to have inti­mate knowl­edge of the data they store and how long it would take them to access such data.

Most com­pa­nies were used to trans­fer­ring data onto tape and stor­ing them at off­shore sites, some­times even dupli­cat­ing these tapes and stor­ing them at mul­ti­ple loca­tions in case of any cat­a­stro­phe and pos­si­ble data loss or dam­age. How­ever, the costs and resources in access­ing data from stor­age tapes are almost pro­hib­i­tively high. They used to be viable when data wasn’t as vast and exten­sive and other sources of stor­age were a lot more expen­sive and bulky. Instead of mov­ing emails, doc­u­ments and other busi­ness records onto tape, com­pa­nies may be advised to store data on disk sys­tems for longer peri­ods of time. Disks and disk sys­tems lend them­selves to eas­ier access and repro­duc­tion. Cou­pled with the right archiv­ing soft­ware, disk sys­tems can reduce data reten­tion, repro­duc­tion and man­age­ment issues.

About the Author: Stephen J. Richards has 25 years expe­ri­ence in Data Man­age­ment and Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­ogy. Mr. Richards is an expert on main­frame dis­as­ter recov­ery and data reten­tion tech­nol­ogy. For more infor­ma­tion please visit http://www.neonesoft.com

Com­pli­ments of File­Man Research

Cary

_____________________________________________________

Cary F. McGov­ern, CRM

File­Man