Digital archiving has been a hot topic ever since the 1990s. Today, we have access to better, more personalized and more scalable solutions than ever before.
Simply put, the term “digital archiving” refers to organizing, backing up and preserving digital files to ensure eventual disaster recovery. The process typically involves a number of steps that have to be based on archive and technology specifics.
Why should you be focusing so much effort on disaster recovery? There are several crucial reasons. For a start, about 25 percent of companies will never reopen after a disaster. For small businesses, the percentage is even higher (going up to anywhere between 40 and 60 percent).
These are the reasons why the global demand for cloud-based disaster recovery services has grown exponentially over the past few years.
But what do you do with such a system or a platform once it’s in place? Here are some of the best digital archiving practices that will create a reliable database you can always count on.
Choose the Right Document Management System
Very often, digital archiving can be automated almost entirely if you choose the right document management system for your business.
Modern document management systems come with built-in backing up and archive creation capabilities.
Furthermore, these platforms are capable of version control, preventing the loss of the most recent version of a file. There will also be a detailed log report that provides information about access to documents and changes being made.
Digital archiving can be a burdensome process, especially if you do it often enough. Hence, a quality document management system will be needed to reduce the burden and produce a reliable outcome at the same time.
Set the Right Digital Archiving Schedule
Your archiving efforts will only be as good as the adequacy of your backup schedule.
The frequency of creating backups will depend on how often new information is being added to your document database.
Companies that work with lots of documents and make frequent changes will need to implement a more frequent backup schedule. Even those who don’t work a lot on an archive will require a backup refresh every now and then.
The consequences of not doing backups often enough are easy to understand. Once you come up with a meaningful schedule, you can integrate that timeframe within your document management system. This is essential to have access to the newest version of an archive in the event of disaster recovery.
Make Sure You Have Hardware Independence
Many companies still do digital archiving locally.
That means the information is being stored on premises within a hard drive or a server.
Hardware-based digital archiving is not the best or the most reliable option you can employ today. After all, hardware can get damaged or stolen. In both instances, you’ll be left without your company’s most valuable asset – information.
Cloud-based document storage is much more meaningful as far as backups go. For a start, you don’t have to ensure the safety of hardware. In addition, backups are created in a way that eliminates the risk of information loss.
Going for a cloud-based solution will also be much more affordable. Scalability is another potential issue you’ll be taking care of. When cloud-based document storage is employed, resources can be expanded effortlessly upon necessity. No downtime will be involved in the process.
Ensuring Archive Integrity and Proper Structure
The final thing you need to think about is the usability of a digital backup. The same consideration holds true for the corporate database that you’re employing right now.
Proper archive structure is very important to make information easy to retrieve.
You need to come up with a filename creation methodology, a proper organization of the files and indexing criteria. Having unified guidelines for all employees to utilize will result in a database structure that’s meaningful and easy to work with.
Modern document management systems have intelligent indexing capabilities. In some instances, information wouldn’t even have to be entered manually. It’s up to you to decide if you’re going to count on such technology or enter file descriptors by hand. Whichever approach you pick, consistency will be key. It will be even more important in the event of disaster recovery when speed and efficiency are going to matter even more than before.
Digital archiving isn’t a redundant process that wastes time. In fact, it can be completely automated today. When this process is completed correctly, backup creation isn’t going to burden anyone within the organization.
To make the most of your digital archiving efforts, you will need to do two simple things. For a start, choose the right technology that matches your needs. Next, come up with usage guidelines that will help for backup creation consistency. If you have these two essentials in place, your archiving efforts will yield excellent results that could even save your business one day.