I read today about Avery important concept for database which is Information life cycle management (ILM) which is a comprehensive approach to managing the flow of information from creation and initial storage to the time when it becomes obsolete and is deleted. ILM involves all aspects of dealing with data. Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) is a sustainable storage strategy that balances the cost of storing and managing information with its business value.
ILM products automate the processes involved, typically organizing data into separate tiers according to specified policies, and automating data migration from one tier to another based on those criteria. As a rule, newer data, and data that must be accessed more frequently, is stored on faster, but more expensive storage media, while less critical data is stored on cheaper, but slower media. However, the ILM approach recognizes that the importance of any data does not rely solely on its age or how often it’s accessed.
All information, or data, in storage has a specific lifecycle, from the time the information enters an organization’s system to the time it is archived or removed from the system. The information may have a finite lifecycle—where the data are eventually removed from a storage when the information becomes outdated or no longer needed—or an infinite lifecycle if the information remains valuable to the organization retaining it. In general, there are three stages in the information lifecycle: The creation or acquisition of the data, The publication of the data and The retention or removal of the data .
The management of the information lifecycle involves keeping the data accessible to the users who need the information and determining how the information is stored based on how high of a priority the information has in the organization at any given moment. At each stage in the information’s lifecycle, the management infrastructure must determine the best software, hardware and storage medium required for the information at that stage, and how those factors differ as the data move through the lifecycle.
