When I was briefing analysts on an archive storage product in preparation for its launch back in 2006 one of them said that they had come up with a new descriptor, “active archive” and that was the market we should be positioning in. It was obvious they thought that this was something innovative, a new market buzz word to rally around. Something that described greater customer value in an archive beyond just a place to put stuff, lock it down and forget about it. My first thought: Duh. I have been defining archive storage as “an active part” of the information infrastructure for well over a decade.
By its very nature an archive is active. It is a living, breathing entity within an organization. It grows, it evolves and is (or should be) a source of knowledge for future generations. Archive is also not simply one technology or product. It is a process comprised of human and computing systems working together to effectively manage an information lifecycle. Yes, I said it, ILM (a little backwards though). This is how I described the archive in developing the foundation strategy for a new solutions business unit at one of the major storage vendors many years ago (1999). Traditional archivists themselves define their role similarly and have been using the term information lifecycle management long before it became a buzz word in the technology industry.
Back in those days archive was perceived as a static storage location that was rarely, if ever accessed, and only then in cases of emergency. It was (sometimes still is) confused with backup or hierarchical storage management (HSM), but it is so much more and includes these components. Getting people to understand archive as a comprehensive approach to information management was a challenge, and it’s still not understood this way. However, I believe the winds of change are blowing as we see more activity and initiatives focused on enterprise information management. It takes a top-down approach to understand the type of information being produced within an organization and make a determination as to the importance and value of that information to develop an effective management process.
Industries that view their digital information (data) as assets fully recognize the archive’s value as an active part of their business. Companies in health care, pharmaceutical, media & entertainment, and oil & gas understand that information created today can provide future benefits. Research conducted during drug discovery ten years ago can have significant impact on current drug development today. Video captured in the past can be re-purposed for new productions being developed at a broadcast company. In these instances the archive is a critical component to business success or at least level of success. Are traditional organizations outside these industries so different? Is the intellectual property and knowledge contained in unstructured data (files) any less of a business asset? No, not really.
An effective information management process will directly lead to a quality archive and vice versa as they are inextricably linked together. Both require a top-down approach to define the information landscape starting at the point of creation and how each piece of information shall be described (metadata). Metadata is the key to the kingdom for information management and archiving in the digital world. It enables automation and intelligence to be applied to an individual information asset or set of assets. It simplifies the process of finding and retrieving assets regardless of how long they’ve been stored. (I’ll expand on the concept and value of metadata in relation to storage in a future post.)
The point is that archive is an active process, which requires a number of technologies seamlessly working together. Storage vendors introduced the concept of archive to the digital world, but were more focused on one of the roles of an archive or archivist:
- Preserve information and evidence in a protective environment and in a format or media that will remain useable over time.
The above is more of the noun definition of archive. The other role defined by the Society of American Archivists (SAA) makes the archive actionable.
- Provide descriptive tools such as registers, indices and databases to allow others to locate and identify information and evidence in archival holdings.
The descriptive tools are very much dependent on metadata derived from a variety of sources where the elements are defined based on the specific needs and industry of an organization. Applications are critical to an effective archive and ILM strategy in this area. While some storage vendors are working to vertically integrate to include more of this functionality, a complete archive solution requires more cohesive interoperability between infrastructure and applications.
Suffice to say that archive is more complex than just storing stuff for a long time and the better organizations get at managing information as a holistic process, from cradle to grave, the more effective they will be.
what marketing strategies can archivist employ to market archvies.
Great question. This is something I’ve been working on for many years when it comes to digital archiving. One of the biggest hurdles is getting the market to understand that archiving is an information management process and not just a way to “store a bunch of stuff” for a long time.