ILM: The life cycle of information

The graphic attempts to describe the life cycle of information in a system. And we are going to analyze it from our SAP perspective.

The execution of the various steps of a business process triggers the creation and eventual modification of information in the database. Once that process is finished, the frequency of access to that data starts to drop. Data from a completed process is no longer modified. The reading requirements are sporadic.

From this description, very powerful definitions emerge when thinking about an Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) initiative.

ILM is a broader view that includes archiving, but extends to determining the time of total destruction of information.

The strongest ideas to consider and that fully impact every ILM project are:

a) Residency time: How long should it take from the time a business process is completed until I can archive the information from that process? This definition directly impacts the scope and volume of a data archiving initiative.

b) Retention time: How long should I keep the archived information? The answer to this question responds fundamentally to legal and business requirements and has technological consequences: it is necessary to define the technology that will sustain this storage for the necessary periods of time.

It is essential to be clear about these questions and to go back to the golden rules of archiving:

1) Do not archive data whose business process has not been completed.

2) Do not archive data if the defined residence time has not been reached.

3) All archived and retained data is always accessible. By making a conjunction between concepts and rules, a draft ILM project begins to be designed.

In future posts, we will advance on specific features of the SAP ILM implementation.

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