A data science enthusiast, Clive Humby, quotes that ‘Data is the new oil.’ Data is a valuable asset for any organization and it has to be preserved safely for a variety of reasons.
The core reason for keeping the data safe is about gaining the trust of clients, consumers, or concerned stakeholders, where other reasons may cost friendliness in records management, data security from loss or theft, and compliance with the law. Keeping a check on a large pile of data is burdensome.
Imagine the job of a file keeper or storekeeper, who have always under the heap of files. They spend hours in indexing and filing records, and only they can retrieve a file. It is like relying on a person for all the records. One of the dependable solutions is data archiving.
What is data archiving?
Have you ever archived your phone images to a cloud drive? If so, you may know the reasons. Like, you archive images to free some space from the phone, preserve the images for long, and prevent losing them. Data archiving is a similar concept.
Any organization that wants to preserve its data that is not used in routine operations in a space where it would be safe and easily retrievable.
Data archiving is not new, as companies have been hiring services to preserve their physical records for decades, which has been transformed into digital archiving now. Companies can take benefit from it in a multitude of ways.
Why managing and archiving data is important?
Every business wants to keep a check on its record and control its access and circulation. Managing records on-site is a clear indication that an organization is not serious about maintaining its valuable records. It may include business secrets, consumers’ data, client or suppliers’ contact details, or various other forms of sensitive data. Archiving data is the answer to foolproof security and maintenance of records. Let us find other ways it can benefit a business.
– Reduced cost
For managing data on-site, an organization may need large vaults to keep the files in good condition and ensure flawless records management. First, it occupies a lot of space. The physical records take the space, which can be used for productive activities. Secondly, the organization needs to keep the space free from termites, rain, and dampness. Lastly, security personnel must be deployed for the prevention of data loss during and after office hours.
Alternatively, for digital document management, the organization may need to invest in commercial equipment like scanners, optical recognition applications, data processing tools, and hard drives; and data technicians to manage it all.
Collectively, it costs a huge amount to the organization. Data archiving can prove a cost-effective solution as it mitigates all such on-site operations. They have to hand-over their precious data to reliable documents managing the company to manage it professionally.
– No Loss of Data
Data archiving stops unauthorized access of staff or any other member of an organization to confidential records of an organization. They are unable to access, view, and dispose off or delete the document the way they could do in maintain records on-premise. Therefore, data archiving provides an organization with ultimate security from data loss, either it is deliberate or by mistake.
An organization can archive data to a central and secure warehouse or turning it into digital form and moving to a secure cloud server. In either case, the employees stop getting access to the data. Like, if you avail any data storage facility, they would back up and retrieve data in the presence of authorized personnel only, which deters data loss, theft, or even eavesdropping.
– Compliance with law
Keeping records for long is often required by different legislations. The time span to preserve documents varies with respect to the nature of a job, project, business, or industry. To keep a company safe from litigations and penalties, they have to keep the documents as proof so that these can be demonstrated when required.
In pursuit of cleaning the clutter, companies may dispose off their valuable documents as well that were meant to be kept for the next five or ten years. With data archiving, companies rest assured that their data is saved. It is safe from accidental disposal or damages due to termites, rain, or natural calamities.
To ensure compliance with the law, you can instruct data archiving companies to keep the recovered for a specific period and automatically dispose them off. Thus, it saves you cost on retaining documents that are no longer need for legal purposes.
– Secure Custody
Files are robbed or misplaced mysteriously when it contains confidential data. It may be about contracts, projects, or personalities. To remove the record, an entire file is withdrawn from the record by bribing an employee or intruding on the premises by force.
Archiving data on the cloud may also expose several threats like malware and cyber attacks. These attacks are increasing by every passing day, and on data centers, that store private and sensitive data.
Data archiving becomes mandatory when an organization aims to be more cautious in preserving its record. It puts a bar on unhappy and disloyal employees and expert hackers reaching your valuable data.
– Paperless environment
The world is moving digital. Every business wants to digitize their paperwork to minimize the use of hard paper and files. Data archiving with cloud servers has become mandatory for them to adopt paperless work and become an environment-friendly company. They can either digitize their operations or convert conventional data archiving to virtual drives.
Final verdict
Managing physical documents becomes difficult for a company that possesses and processes data in large quantities. A secure and reliable solution is to outsource the entire mechanism to data archiving companies such as Archive Technologies in Pakistan. Such a company owns dedicated premises that are guarded by personnel and security cameras with restricted entry. Their professional conducts make data archiving the most economical and safest alternative.
