| Data retention has long been a vital business | | | | Some notable sanctions propelling the need |
| practice, allowing companies to use client | | | | for businesses to implement a comprehensive |
| information, assess company growth, and | | | | data retention system are the Sarbanes-Oxley |
| retrieve and manipulate data on past | | | | Act, the Health Insurance Portability and |
| performance, all with the goal of propelling | | | | Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and BASEL |
| business growth and success. A number of | | | | II. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which imposes |
| factors contribute to a company's need to | | | | strict standards regarding the retention of |
| retain data, such as future analyses of | | | | accounting data, was overwhelmingly passed in |
| business processes and compliance with | | | | 2002 by the United States House of |
| government regulations that continue to lay | | | | Representatives and the Senate. HIPAA, |
| out stricter requirements regarding the | | | | commonly known as the Privacy Rule, is a |
| retention, disclosure and disposal of | | | | health industry standard aimed at allowing |
| business data. The technological era has | | | | the flow of patients' health data for health |
| brought about a proliferation of electronic | | | | research purposes without disclosing an |
| file data, spurring revolutionary change in | | | | individual's "protected health information," |
| the way data is collected, retrieved, | | | | and requiring entities to preserve and be |
| archived and disclosed. | | | | prepared to readily disclose data for six |
| | | | years. Similarly, BASEL II places disclosure |
| Businesses are faced with the challenge of | | | | requirements on the financial industry. |
| adhering to varying data retention | | | | |
| requirements at the federal and state levels. | | | | Ever increasing data retention requirements |
| Many recent laws have increased the length of | | | | also place monumental pressure on enterprise |
| time that businesses must retain data, | | | | data availability software companies to |
| placing increasing pressure on companies to | | | | produce the most advanced archiving solutions |
| institute data archiving systems with the | | | | with tremendous capacities and prolonged |
| capacity to securely store increasing amounts | | | | reliability. Available data archiving |
| of information, possibly for decades. Besides | | | | solutions give companies the capability of |
| placing time requirements on data retention, | | | | storing great amounts of data that is no |
| regulations also require that data be secure, | | | | longer needed for business purposes in a |
| unable to be edited and produced on demand | | | | protected, non-editable format in a location |
| with short notice. To ensure security and | | | | that will not affect the data that is crucial |
| that records are retained in a non-editable | | | | to business operations. Such systems can |
| format, organizations must have an archiving | | | | provide a user friendly interface to |
| system separate from the operational and | | | | streamline implementation of a company's data |
| reference data that is still needed for | | | | archiving strategy, and automatically discard |
| frequent business transactions and queries. | | | | information once it reached the mandatory |
| | | | data retention time frame. |