The rapid growth of electronic fixed content, where data is written once and never altered, along with the business practices and regulatory compliance rulings around the retention and protection of information, are forcing organizations to rethink the way they address long-term information management.

Regardless of whether you operate in the public or private sector, there are multiple sources of corporate governance and regulatory compliance requirements affecting your business. In the UK, for example, there is legislation in the form of:

• the Data Protection Act 1998, The Companies Act 2004 or the

• Freedom of Information Act 2000

While some of the EU directives of relevance include:

• MiFID (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive)

• European Convention on Human Rights and the Privacy

• CDR (Call detail Record)

• Electronic Communications Regulations 2003

Businesses are now required to retain and quickly retrieve fixed content, and demonstrate it has not been altered or accessed by anyone other than an authorized user, in order to comply with laws and regulations mandating records retention. On occasion, these records may defend a company in the event of an audit, investigation, or lawsuit. As a result, the ability to demonstrate the integrity of the records is imperative.

The StorTech Compliance Archiving solutions from Symantec, EMC and CStore are designed to help address the most stringent requirements for electronic storage media retention. In conjunction with an ILM framework optimal storage usage is ensured and costs are controlled on an ongoing basis.