Cornerstone Communications
Electronic Document Storage Basics
Ability to retrieve documents is becoming increasingly important
2006 American City Business Journals, Inc.

If you don’t think electronic document storage is important, just ask managers at investment bank Morgan Stanley – they can explain the importance in painful detail.

Last year a Florida jury leveled a $604.3 million verdict against the firm – due in part to information management (or mismanagement). The presiding judge slammed Morgan Stanley and its law firm for not being able to produce e-mails from electronically stored records.

“In so many words, the judge told the jury to infer that the withheld documents demonstrated fraud,” says John Mancini, president of the Enterprise Content Management Association, a group that promotes efficient document management.

Morgan Stanley isn’t alone. Headlines on all kinds of business losing Social Security and credit-card numbers are commonplace today. The result? Lawsuits that make companies liable for bad security. The stakes have never been higher.

“Businesses are learning tough lessons,” Mancini says. “But in addition to compliance issues, they’re also learning that managing information is about improved efficiency, less risk, better customer service, lower costs and business continuity.”

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Indeed, the reasons for good document management are plentiful, but how to choose? “First, you have to figure out which sport you’re playing before you start the game,” Mancini says. “Many businesses hop in way too quickly. Managers need to first keep their core business objectives in mind before they shop.”

Mancini says coordination with all departments is essential. “Define internal requirements from all the disciplines represented in the organization,” he says. “Take the time to understand what you’re trying to do and why in a careful, strategic way.”

Mancini says a study from his organization found that 34 percent of storage-system installations failed because of lack of coordination.

Bruce Thompson of the Storage Networking Industry Association, a tradegroup with 460 member companies, says when shopping for a storage system, consider capacity and simplicity.

“A storage system that lacks enough capacity can be very annoying because it’s a real hassle to have to go back and add more capacity later,” Thompson says.

He also says it’s important to choose a system that can match the company’s administrative capabilities. “This is especially important for smaller businesses that don’t have technical people on staff to handle some systems,” he says. “Avoid the fancy stuff unless you have technically savvy people.”

He says one of those less complex systems is networked attached storage or NAS. It provides stored data on local area network and is not tied to just one computer or server – so the information is more accessible and, according to Thompson, easier to set up and operate.

No matter what arrangement you choose, Thompson and others say to make certain the backup process is part of any decision for a new system.

“It doesn’t matter so much how the backup is done, but it’s absolutely essential that the backup gets done,” Thompson says. “Many companies just don’t do backups, and then they have to restore their system, and they lose all their data.”

When it comes to backups there are a couple of choices – tape or disk. Some say tape is the least expensive electronic storage technology available because it uses less power and air conditioning than a comparable hard-disk system. And tape systems can be easily upgraded to handle more storage with additional tape cartridges.

But, disk proponents say tape is a dated technology, unchanged for 40 years, and disks make it easier to monitor remote offices and automate backups. Plus, most say disk is faster than tape.

But, there may be room for both. Some experts say disk-based backup will be used to recover data from local system outages, and tape will tackle long-term data storage to meet legal requirements.

Document Storage Tips
  • Create clear policies on what records to keep and when to capture them
  • Document relevant information about records, such as their names, creators, dates created and owners
  • Determine who will have access to them and the authority to modify or delete them
  • Create a retention policy to determine how long records are saved and how they will be purged
  • Hold periodic audits to ensure systems are working
Visit this link to find out more information on electronic document storage

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