Information has a life cycle: It is created, it
lives within databases and systems, it changes, and
it is archived and eventually deleted. How we create,
store, retrieve, and delete it is termed information
lifecycle management (ILM). Here is a very simple
example: Once your computer hard drive is full of
data, you can simply delete what is stored there
and start anew. But from a business point of view,
some data has a short life and quickly becomes outdated,
while other data has a long lifespan and you will
repeatedly need to access it.
So you must decide: Do you delete some older
data to make room for the new? If so, how do
you choose which data to delete? Do you add
another hard drive? Do you move data onto the
network? After you have moved the data, how
do you efficiently find it again when you need
it? And how do you know what information you
do and don't have — an important
question in today's regulatory environment?