Although IDC Canada analyst Alan Freedman said he’s never heard a catch phrase take hold as quickly in an industry as information lifecycle management (ILM), the storage strategy is still drawing few devoted followers in the country.
EMC Corp. describes it as cost-effectively managing information
from the time it’s created right through its use, storage and destruction.
Instead of storage as an afterthought, more customers now view it as a critical business asset — a trend being driven by the growth of information, explained Chris Gahagan, senior vice-president of storage management software at EMC. “”Virtually everything is being digitized.””
Prompted by new technologies like RFID, an explosion of information is imminent and will be best managed by companies that properly align their data resources around the most valuable information, Gahagan said.
Yet, rolling out an ILM strategy to manage corporate data is “”not something you do in an all-in-one, gigantic step,”” he cautioned. He said companies must assess and plan, deploy certain pieces of ILM and decide how well the plan worked.
In Canada, only four per cent of firms have deployed a complete ILM strategy, with expectations another five per cent will adopt the approach this year, according to Freedman. He said the balance of companies may not be using a true solution or may have rolled out only “”a piece of an ILM solution.””
Although it’s a new business tactic that few people understand, there has been “”quite a lot of talk about ILM, and more mainstream solutions are coming to market,”” Freedman explained.