Unstructured enterprise information has a lifecycle that begins when a user creates a document. At first, users frequently access and modify new documents, but over time, this activity declines. When documents become completely inactive for a pre-determined period of time, they can safely be archived without interfering with business processes.

Using an ILM strategy, organizations can maximize their existing storage resources and improve ROI. Instead of wasting valuable primary storage space on documents that haven't been accessed in months, organizations can migrate those documents to less-expensive, second-tier storage devices. Reduced backup costs can lead to even higher savings.

Migrating data from expensive, high-performance storage to less-expensive storage enables IT organizations to align their storage policies with business priorities and comply with regulations that stipulate longer data retention periods—all while keeping data management costs under control.

Unfortunately, it's difficult to monitor the information lifecycle when data is distributed across multiple devices and geographies throughout the enterprise. That's why data consolidation/migration and ILM is so critical. It enables organizations to optimize their existing storage resources and realize higher ROI by consolidating storage in data centers, then giving IT administrators the tools they need to better manage the data lifecycle without interrupting end-user access to data.

While the concept of ILM predates computers (it applies to printed documents as well as digital files), data classification, consolidation, and ILM tools make it easy to implement in enterprise storage systems. Together, they provide a powerful way to create tiers of storage and simplify compliance requirements, resulting in lower overall storage costs.

With the Brocade StorageX Global Namespace, administrators have a logical way of grouping data for classification. Brocade StorageX takes data classification a step further and provides robust reporting capabilities that help administrators prepare for major IT projects. Brocade StorageX uniquely enables IT administrators to classify data based on business-relevant categories, including department, location, project, user group, file age, file size, and last access time, among others. Once the classification policies are completed, administrators can run customizable reports to meet their specific needs for determining data migration requirements.

• In-depth data classification based on multiple parameters
• Reporting through Brocade StorageX is automated and policy-based
• Brocade StorageX provides a comprehensive list of standard reports, and enables administrators to run customized reports
• Brocade StorageX supports agentless and/or agent-based reporting
• Brocade StorageX reports can be used as the foundation for successfully implementing data lifecycle management strategies

• Brocade StorageX
• Brocade File Lifecycle Manager (FLM)