Network Computing is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

A National Archiving Challenge: Page 2 of 2

There are questions as to whether the new system can handle the job. The budget was cut in the middle of development and deployment, it is behind schedule, and it isn't clear that it can handle all of the data formats that the administration used for communications. Additional complications include lots of missing emails, high-level officials who think they can decide what will be included in the archives and what won't be included, and a host of lawsuits seeking access to many of the administration's private communications.

NARA's system uses database technology from Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL) and EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC)'s Documentum for records management, search technology, and a Web-based front end, according to a story in Computerworld. It includes a storage system from Hitachi Ltd. (NYSE: HIT; Paris: PHA) that blends servers from EMC, Hitachi, and Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: JAVA), as well as the Hitachi Content Archive Platform, which automatically indexes records as they enter the system, enabling immediate search capability, the story said.

Most storage admins understand the challenges NARA faces. And it isn't about storage. The Times quotes Paul Brachfeld, the archives inspector general, who raised questions about how quickly the records will be made available to Congress, the courts, and researchers. "The electronic records archives system may be able to take in a tremendous amount of e-mail and other records," he said. "But just because you ingest the data does not mean that people can locate, identify, recover and use the records they need."

That's the bottom line, isn't it? The job of storage administrators is never just about storing data. Today, the job is about all of those other things: locating, identifying, recovering, and using. And those tasks will be even more important in 2009. Most of you will be asked to do all of them and much more in the next year, probably with smaller budgets and fewer personnel. It means that next year will be one of the most challenging that we've seen in a long time. But cheer up -- you could be working for the National Archives. Happy New Year to you and yours. I'll talk to you again in 2009.