IBM Global Technology Services

Thought Leadership White Paper

July 2012

Content management in the cloudIBM helps organizations more efficiently manage information, improve regulatory compliance

2 Content management in the cloud

Contents

2 Introduction

2 Keeping everything, forever

3 Intelligent content management

4 The perils of doing it yourself

5 The value of a managed services approach

6 The IBM SmartCloud Content Management services difference

7 Charting a path to intelligent content management

8 Why IBM?

8 For more information

IntroductionThe world’s data volume quadruples every four years. Line-of-business leaders, legal officers, compliance officers, risk officers, COOs and CIOs scramble to warehouse it all. They strain already-stretched corporate budgets to purchase ever-increasing amounts of storage—even though up to 70 percent of the infor-mation stored has no value to the organization. Retention of this worthless data—much of it redundant worthless data—leads to compromised system performance, unnecessary operational complexity, and higher-than-needed storage costs.

The question then arises: Why would any organization spend money to retain data of no value? The answer can be found in the worldwide emergence of regulatory and litigious

environments demanding that organizations retain certain types of data. For example, financial companies based in (or hoping to do business in) the United States are subject to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. This law, designed to improve the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures, regulates the management of financial information. Healthcare and insur-ance companies operate under the data-retention mandates of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Similar laws regulate data retention for pharmaceutical, oil, gas, energy, chemical, industrial and governmental organizations. And virtually all large organizations are subject to the e-Discovery provisions of local civil law codes. These provisions require organizations to place legal holds on all potentially relevant information when specific litigation is reasonably anticipated.

Keeping everything, foreverAware of these regulations and the risk of litigation, many organizations rely on a “keep everything forever” approach to meeting data-retention mandates. IBM understands this ratio-nale. Too often, corporate data retention and disposal policies have failed to keep pace with the ever-evolving regulatory envi-ronment. When data is siloed—scattered over hundreds of serv-ers, applications and end-user devices—with no actionable retention policy, keeping everything forever may seem like a prudent course of action.

But it’s not. It does no good for an organization to store all this data if that organization is unable to actually find the archived information as needed. Operational inefficiency arises as too many hours are spent searching for elusive pieces of information. The manpower it takes to comb through mountains of improp-erly stored data is one of the reasons why the cost of fulfilling

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the average e-Discovery motion has risen to US$3 million, according to some estimates. The data glut can also lead to tech-nological bottlenecks and increased downtime, increased backup times, and longer restore times. Then there’s the cost. While the price of storage hardware has dramatically decreased in the last 10 years, the price of storage management has not. In fact, IBM estimates that the cost of managing storage is seven times its acquisition cost. Worst of all, since 70 percent of all informa-tion is unnecessarily retained, today’s organizations are spending a lot of time, effort and money to store and search through trash (see Figure 1).

Valuelessinformation

Regulatory recordkeeping

Has businessutility

Subject tolegal hold

Like our clients across the globe, IBM believes that there must be a better way to manage information that must be retained for corporate, legal and regulatory reasons. We believe that the technology now exists to help organizations:

●● Determine which data has specific legal and business value●● Decide how long that information should be kept●● Intelligently archive needed information that will be infre-

quently accessed, and make it easy to find●● Defensibly dispose of everything else

Finally, we believe that cloud computing provides an attractive new platform for this type of archiving. Moving data to the cloud, especially as part of a managed content management ser-vice, can free up in-house IT resources, providing staff IT teams more time to focus on activities that bring value to the organization.

Intelligent content managementIntelligent content management is a process for effectively man-aging inactive, infrequently accessed, or currently unmanaged data, both structured and unstructured, that must be retained to meet corporate, legal and regulatory requirements. This process provides organizations with the ability to archive, discover, search, and retrieve data, then store it for a specified period—typically the period required by mandate—and to defensibly dispose of it when the mandated retention period expires. To improve information access, intelligent content management includes full-text indexing, advanced search functions and e-Discovery features. Finally, cloud-based archiving can help organizations cut costs and minimize capital expenditures by offering a usage-based pricing structure.

Figure 1: By some estimates, 70 percent of all information that organizations pay to store has no business value.

4 Content management in the cloud

Typically, information to be archived includes artifacts of busi-ness processes—including email files and files generated by applications in use by the organization and its employees (think of Microsoft® Office files as one example). These files may be located on corporate servers, on employee desktops and laptops, and on mobile devices, among other repositories. They often include:

●● Customer and client documents, such as loan origination documents, contracts and account opening documentation

●● Internal and external communications, including customer correspondence, instant messages and chats

●● Work product information, such as production records, engineering plans and specifications and file system content

●● Media files, such as animations, audio and video production files, media images and taped phone conversations

The perils of doing it yourselfIncreasingly, organizations are becoming aware of the value of taking a more intelligent approach to archiving and managing content. Some attempt to develop custom solutions in-house. In IBM’s experience, this can be a challenging process. Since in-house IT staffs are not typically content management experts, do-it-yourself solutions are often expensive, inefficient and risky. They often cannot meet the challenges of stakehold-er interlock, retention/disposal policy development, capital investment and project deployment.

The difficulty begins as an organization develops its new data retention/disposal policy. Simply deciding what to keep, and for how long, can be problematic. Lack of stakeholder interlock is a significant issue. Put simply, business and legal divisions typically

have no idea what content the other needs to retain, and IT is often unaware of the regulatory environments affecting either. Even if lines of business, legal departments and IT can cobble together an acceptable data-retention policy, finding the data to be archived is a challenging task. Pertinent information may be stored not only on corporate servers, but in corporate applica-tions and on end user devices such as desktop computers, laptop computers, tablet computers and smartphones. Specialized skills may be needed to cull data from all of these repositories. Additional challenges include:

●● Data disposal. Very few organizations boast the in-house expertise needed to develop both a data retention policy that will meet government and industry mandates and the type of data disposal policy that will prove acceptable to the courts. (It is estimated that only 22 percent of all large enterprises have a court-defensible information-disposal policy.1) The inability to develop a defensible data-disposal policy is one of the reasons why organizations pay to store valueless data.

●● Money. Significant capital is required to buy the hardware and software necessary to support intelligent archiving and content management, and the company can expect unpredict-able monthly costs for management tasks and for heating, ventilation and air conditioning.

●● Solution deployment. Organizations must be prepared for the tricky process of installing the required hardware, software and applications. They must be ready to negotiate licenses for these technologies. They must build in the scalability to accommodate ever-increasing amounts of data. And they must build in back-up and recovery capabilities for retained data. After all, if an organization has disposed of unnecessary and redundant information, then the information actually being archived is worth backing up securely and reliably.

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The value of a managed services approachWith a more complete understanding of the intricacies of devel-oping an in-house solution for data retention and disposal that addresses company, regulatory and legal requirements, many organizations may prefer to outsource this work to a trusted technology partner. To achieve optimal value, IBM suggests organizations choose a fully managed, cloud-based solution, priced according to client utilization. This solution should include the expertise and upfront services needed to help create a smarter retention/disposal policy as well as the ability to clas-sify, index, search and retrieve data in a security-rich manner. The solution should also provide tools for meeting stringent regulatory, compliance and privacy laws while automating regu-latory monitoring and reporting.

Figure 2: IBM SmartCloud Content Management services help clients manage archived data with capabilities ranging from defining taxonomies to performing advanced searches.

Use the SmartCloud Content Management portal to set up and define users

Define document taxonomies and retention policies

Use batch loader to ingest records, documents and images

Perform advanced search on metadata or full context

Run audits on ingestof documents and searches

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5

Administer Classify Ingest Search Report

SSL

Because different organizations have reached different levels of content management maturity, ancillary offerings may be needed to help with the intricacies of capturing, migrating, and organiz-ing data. IBM suggests choosing a partner that can deploy ana-lytics to uncover pertinent information wherever it resides, then automate migration to the cloud (eliminating redundant data as appropriate). Additional software programs may be needed to unify content and data archiving through common classification technologies and integrated records management. E-Discovery analytics should be available to help organizations perform sophisticated searches, manage documents by case, maintain the chain of custody, and export documents as necessary. These ana-lytics should also allow legal departments to place holds directly on data in the cloud. This helps organizations avoid the risk of system slowdown that can occur when massive amounts of retained data are stored in operational databases.

6 Content management in the cloud

The IBM SmartCloud Content Management services differenceIBM strongly feels that when choosing a technology partner, organizations pick a company that acts as a one-stop shop for the content management services, software and cloud-based plat-form needed for an intelligent data retention and archiving solu-tion. IBM SmartCloud™ Content Management services have been developed to do just that.

A SmartCloud Content Management solution begins with IBM teams working with a client to define document taxono-mies and develop defensible retention and disposal policies (see Figure 2). A batch loader is deployed to ingest appropriate records, documents and images. The client’s data is then archived in an IBM-hosted cloud within a multiple-tenant infra-structure. The archive is then ready to search as needed: meta data and full context searches are both available, as are audits of the documents ingested and searches conducted. Archived data is immutable—it will not be commingled with the data of other organizations. Cloud security is handled via the same type of encryption used in online banking, making the data stored on the IBM cloud typically more secure than data stored on the client’s premises.

Figure 3: The IBM SmartCloud Content Management services dashboard acts as a “single pane of glass,” giving administrators a clear view of the information assets stored on the IBM cloud.

While all the components of an intelligent content management solution discussed in “The value of a managed services approach” section of this document are offered as part of IBM SmartCloud Content Management services, we believe that four aspects of our solution truly set us apart in the market-place. First, IBM has developed a specialized methodology for forging a link between information stakeholders, IT divisions, and the information to be archived. Through this process, IBM examines and interlocks organizational content, taxono-mies, and existing retention strategies to plot the most efficient path possible to the desired retention/disposal policy.

The second differentiator is our content management dash-board. As illustrated in Figure 3, this dashboard acts as a “single pane of glass,” giving administrators a clear view of the informa-tion assets stored within the archive. It provides access control, classification and taxonomy tools, document and metadata man-agement, retention management, workload management, batch processing, and system management—including monitoring and reporting. The dashboard also eases the e-Discovery process by allowing authorized personnel to monitor the various legal holds applied to different systems, along with the status of these holds—such as the status of automated execution, the status of evidence collection in progress, the retention schedule of information residing in a particular asset, and the history of evidence already collected.

Third, our solution is a fully-managed cloud-based service with ultra-high availability. SmartCloud Content Management requires no changes to the client’s data center, no tools for the client to buy or to maintain on the organization’s premises, and only a lightweight, web-based portal to be installed. The solution is run from IBM’s global network of resiliency centers, employing IBM hardware, software and services.

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IBM helps insurance company eliminate 4 TB of data

To more easily respond to e-Discovery requests, a large healthinsurance company worked with IBM to eliminate 4 TB of unnecessary email files. IBM also helped classify, archive and centrally manage 50 TB of additional inactive information. This flexible content management and archiving solution provides a single interface for unstructured litigation support, centralized records management, and centralized intelligent searching. As a result, the company reduced the amount of time it takes to respond to e-Discovery requests from weeks to days, significantly reducing litigation expenses.

Because of IBM’s redundant infrastructure, our solution also offers a high availability capability. Our global reach often allows IBM to offer archiving in-country for those organizations oper-ating under regional laws that mandate data retention within the boundaries of the organization’s home nation.

Finally, IBM has the expertise to develop the most effective data retention solutions possible for our clients. More than 1,600 professionals in the IBM Business Continuity and Resiliency Services division work with our experts in storage and software to provide a solution tailored to meet the client organi-zation’s specific data retention and content management needs.

As a result of their decision to choose IBM SmartCloud Content Management, clients typically achieve:

●● Improved compliance with government and industry regula-tions through policy-based document and records retention management

●● Enhanced operational efficiency and improved access to archived data through full-text indexing, advanced search and e-Discovery features

●● A reduction in the in-house staff hours needed to perform archiving tasks

●● Improved ability to control rising costs of data storage and management through predictable IBM utility pricing

Charting a path to intelligent content managementThere are certain steps you can take now to begin plotting a more efficient data retention and content management strategy for your organization. The first step is understanding the regulatory environment in which your organization operates. If your company manufactures airplane engines, for example, you must know that the Federal Aviation Administration requires you to keep all data related to those engines for as long as they are in use. If you work for a governmental organization, you must understand how the state Sunshine Law affects your data-retention policies. Media and entertainment companies are subject to civil e-Discovery laws. Different data-retention requirements apply to different companies, working in different industries, but any sound data-retention policy must take into account rules for data migration, security, redundancy elimina-tion and disposal.

To develop your data retention policy, you need to institute an organization-wide discussion, including communications with line-of-business leaders, legal officers, compliance officers, risk officers, COOs, CIOs, and anyone else involved in the creation and retention of data. Each division must detail what informa-tion it has, where it is stored, what needs to be kept, and for how long. These policies must be interlocked with IT activities.

At this point, many organizations find it useful to begin consoli-dating their server and storage environments. Concurrently, data stakeholders should work together to determine a file plan. With a data retention/disposal policy and file plan in hand, you can begin to dispose of unnecessary and duplicate content, and retire no-longer useful applications. If you choose to implement your solution in-house, you must now also begin the process of acquiring the hardware and software technologies you need to bring your plan to fruition, negotiating the licenses for these technologies, and managing the often-complex installation process.

Why IBM?Developing an effective, efficient data retention solution can be a complicated process. That’s why so many organizations choose IBM SmartCloud Content Management services. As an industry-leading provider of security-rich, scalable cloud-based business resilience solutions, we are deeply qualified to combine best-of-breed hardware, software and services to provide our clients with the most comprehensive data retention, manage-ment and archiving solutions possible. These solutions can help clients improve compliance with government and industry regulations while boosting operational efficiency and reducing storage costs.

What’s more, IBM offers other cloud-based services that can help you address your resilience and compliance challenges. IBM SmartCloud Managed Backup provides data backup and recovery, while IBM SmartCloud Virtualized Server Recovery offers application continuity. Combined with IBM SmartCloud Content Management services, these services can help organiza-tions deploy a comprehensive business resilience solution with the economies and efficiencies that come with cloud computing.

For more informationTo learn more about how IBM can help your organization improve its archiving plan, please contact your IBM representa-tive or IBM Business Partner, or visit the following website: ibm.com/services/continuity

For IBM insights and perspectives on the issues that matter most to business and IT professionals, visit: ibm.com/c-suite

© Copyright IBM Corporation 2012

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Produced in the United States of America July 2012

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The client examples cited are presented for illustrative purposes only. Actual performance results may vary depending on specific configurations and operating conditions. THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND ANY WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF NON-INFRINGEMENT. IBM products are warranted according to the terms and conditions of the agreements under which they are provided.

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1 Benchmark Report on Information Governance. Compliance, Governance and Oversight Council, 2010.

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