"Here at Electronic Arts we appreciate just how important our company data is to our business, we utilised Jcoms knowledge & experience to implement a solution that would allow us to ensure availability, security and ease of management for our data.
Daren Watson, Infrastructure Manager
Electronic Arts Ltd

Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) is not a technology as such. It consists of a number of methodologies, processes and integrated systems which, if implemented properly, will result in significant improvement in the management, storage, retrieval and archiving of business critical data.

ILM applies to any business where there is a need to create, modify, retrieve and retain business critical data. The growing importance attached to ILM has been driven by the introduction of new data protection legislation, regulatory compliance, best practice and the realisation of the business value of information.

Technologies that enable organisations to run their businesses, can at times introduce issues such as spiralling costs and scattering and fragmenting of critical information.

A brief checklist will help greatly in finding the right answers. How should data be stored in the short, medium and long-term? It is important to decide how the data which needs to be kept in the long-term is stored – WORM, CD, DVD, Tape or a Content Address Storage (CAS) solution? The next step is to implement a managed service for data protection & finally, the most important aspect “Information Management”.

Most companies will have conducted an audit and an SRM tool will enable them to see exactly what data they have. The focus needs to be on the right data and infrastructure – it is all very well saying ‘how much’ but what you also need to know is what data is now obsolete. Are revisions required? Is the information duplicated? How much can be kept online?

Implementing ILM will enable any organisation to regain control of its business critical IT assets. It is this objective which drives the implementation of ILM, methodologies.