Information lifecycle management

Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) refers to a series of strategies in order to manage storage systems on computing devices.

ILM is the practice of applying certain policies to accomplish effective information management.[1] This practice originated from managing information in physical forms such as paper, microfilm, negatives, photographs, audio and video recordings[2][citation needed]. It refers to the information management of any product or process from start to end or until its execution.[3][4][5]

ILM encompasses every stage of a "record" from creation to disposal. While it is commonly associated to information that meets the formal definition of a record (and thus related to records management), it applies to all informational assets. During its existence, information may be designated as a record if it documents a business transaction or fulfills a specific business requirement. In this sense, ILM is part of the broader framework of enterprise content management.

The term “business” is used in a broad sense, extending beyond commercial and enterprise activities. While many records are associated with business enterprises, some document historical events or significant moments unrelated to business activities. Examples include birth, death, medical/health, and educational records. e-Science, for example, is an area where ILM has become relevant.

In 2004, the Storage Networking Industry Association, on behalf of the information technology (IT) and information storage industries, attempted to assign a new and broader definition to Information Lifecycle Management (ILM). A definition published on October at the Storage Networking World conference in Orlando, Florida, stated that "ILM consists of the policies, processes, practices, and tools used to align the business value of information with the most appropriate and cost-effective IT infrastructure from the time information is conceived through its final disposition."[6] In this view, information is aligned with business processes, through management policies and service levels associated with applications, metadata, information, and data.

Policy

ILM policy encompasses storage and information policies that guide management processes. Policies are dictated by business goals and drivers. Therefore, policies tie into a framework of overall IT governance and management; change control processes; requirements for system availability and recovery times; and service level agreements (SLAs).[7]

Operational

Operational aspects of ILM include backup and data protection; disaster recovery, restore and restart; archiving and long-term retention; data replication; and day-to-day processes and procedures necessary to manage a storage architecture.

Infrastructure

Infrastructure facets of ILM include the logical and physical architectures, applications dependent upon the storage platforms; security of storage; and data center constraints. Within the application realm, the relationship between applications and the production, test and development requirements are generally most relevant for ILM.

Functionality

In business records management, five phases are identified[8] as part of the records life cycle continuum, along with certain exceptions. The phases are as follows:

  • Creation and Receipt
  • Distribution / Access
  • Use / Consumption
  • Maintenance
  • Disposition

Creation and Receipt refer to records at their point of origin, which can be the creation of records within an organization or the receipt of information from external sources. These records include correspondence, forms, reports, drawings, and computer input/output.[9]

Distribution refers to the management of information after it has been created or received, including internal and external distribution, as records that leave the organization document transactions with outside parties.[clarification needed][10]

Use occurs after internal distribution and involves applying information to support business decisions, document actions, or fulfill other organizational purposes.

Maintenance encompasses records management, including filing, retrieval, and transfer. Filing involves organizing information in a prescribed sequence and developing a system to manage it throughout its useful life within the organization. Effective filing is essential for efficient retrieval and use; inadequate filing practices make accessing information difficult. The transfer process involves responding to requests, retrieving data from files, and providing access to authorized users.

Disposition is the process of handling information that is accessed infrequently or has reached the end of its retention period.[11] Records used infrequently may be moved to an “inactive records facility” until they meet their retention limit. Although some information retains long-term value, most records lose relevance over time, with their highest value occurring shortly after creation. Records then transition from active to semi-active and eventually to inactive.[12] Retention periods are set by an organization-specific retention schedule based on regulatory, statutory, and legal requirements, business needs, and historical or intrinsic value. Information should be appropriately disposed when it is no longer valuable to protect privacy and confidentiality.

Long-term records are those with ongoing value to an organization. Retention periods may extend to 25 years or longer, with some records designated as “indefinite” or “permanent.” However, due to the impracticality of such retention, “permanent” is a rare designation outside of federal agencies.[8] Long-term records must be managed to ensure persistent accessibility, which is relatively straightforward with paper or microfilm but more challenging for electronic records. Electronic records require policies for format viability and media accessibility, as media can degrade or become obsolete. Regular conversion and migration of electronic records help maintain accessibility for required retention periods.

Exceptions to the typical life cycle occur with non-recurring issues outside routine operations. For example, when a legal hold, litigation hold, or legal freeze is required, a records manager places a legal hold within the records management system, preventing the affected files from being scheduled for disposition.[13]

See also

References

  1. ^ Tallon, Paul P.; Scannell, Richard (November 2007). "Information life cycle management". Communications of the ACM. 50 (11): 65–69. doi:10.1145/1297797.1297799. ISSN 0001-0782.
  2. ^ Al-Fedaghi, Sabah (December 2008). "On Information Lifecycle Management". 2008 IEEE Asia-Pacific Services Computing Conference. IEEE. pp. 335–342. doi:10.1109/apscc.2008.81.
  3. ^ Yoshida, Hiroshi (2009), "Information Lifecycle Management", in LIU, LING; ÖZSU, M. TAMER (eds.), Encyclopedia of Database Systems, Boston, MA: Springer US, p. 1499, doi:10.1007/978-0-387-39940-9_1341, ISBN 978-0-387-39940-9, retrieved 2024-12-17
  4. ^ "Information Lifecycle Management". www.oracle.com. Archived from the original on 2023-09-29. Retrieved 2024-12-17.
  5. ^ Press, Gil (2004-01-01). "Information lifecycle management: the EMC perspective". Data Engineering, ….
  6. ^ As cited in Francis, Bob. "SNIA nails down ILM definition." InfoWorld. 1 November 2004: 14.
  7. ^ Tallon, Paul P.; Ramirez, Ronald V.; Short, James E. (2013). "The Information Artifact in IT Governance: Toward a Theory of Information Governance". Journal of Management Information Systems. 30 (3): 141–177. doi:10.2753/MIS0742-1222300306. ISSN 0742-1222. JSTOR 43590145.
  8. ^ a b "The Records Life Cycle" (PDF). New York State Education Department. 2021.
  9. ^ Pearce-Moses, Richard (2005). A glossary of archival and records terminology. Archival fundamentals series. Chicago: Society of American Archivists. ISBN 978-1-931666-14-5.
  10. ^ Gracy, Karen F. (2012). "Distribution and Consumption Patterns of Archival Moving Images in Online Environments". The American Archivist. 75 (2): 422–455. doi:10.17723/aarc.75.2.085785x17862105t. ISSN 0360-9081. JSTOR 43489631.
  11. ^ "Records Disposition Overview". National Archives. 2018-02-05. Retrieved 2024-12-05.
  12. ^ Stephens, David (2007). Records Management: Making the Transition from Paper to Electronic. Overland Park, KS: ARMA International. p. 34. ISBN 9781931786294.
  13. ^ Seuring, Stefan (2004). "Introduction". Greener Management International (45): 3–8. doi:10.9774/GLEAF.3062.2004.sp.00002 (inactive 29 December 2024). ISSN 0966-9671.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of December 2024 (link)