Informatica Data Archive

For the last 5-10 years we observe really rapid development of computer technologies. But this development caused not only a possibility of increase in computing powers, but also increase in volumes processed, and, therefore, and the stored information. Historical data with time begin to remind "a suitcase without handle" which is inconvenient for carrying, and it is a pity to throw out. On the one hand, given for various reasons it is necessary to store. With another - volumes of storage are so big that do not allow to develop to systems and the new directions of business.

The management concept lifecycle of information (Information Lifecycle Management) suggests us to archive those data which we do not use constantly or to move them on cheaper carriers.

Now the market offers a broad spectrum of solutions on archiving of data. Among the offered products there are systems of two types: program and hardware.

Before making decision on the choice any of approaches it is necessary to imagine accurately expected result and to try to understand that we will archive: files or data. The difference in these two approaches is very essential. Archiving the file, we do not think of its contents. Archiving data, the method of their physical storage absolutely ceases to interest us.

Let's imagine a situation that the used database strongly grew, and we would like to transfer a part of data from this base to archive. At the same time data for the last month to us are extremely important, we use them daily for operating activities, and older data are necessary only to certain specialists for rare accomplishment of any requests. How it is possible to get rid of old data so that to solve both problems at once? If the administrator thought of it from the first day of work of the database and provided separation of data on several files, then files with old data can be disconnected and archived. At such approach of competitors the hardware method just has no work. It is better, than the equipment manufacturer on whom files are stored, will not make it nobody. But what if historical and operational data are not distributed according to different files? In this case our task - transfer in archive only parts of data from base. And methods of hardware archiving become unacceptable here.

In such situation to the forefront there is a technology allowing to take in an archiving process necessary data, to squeeze them, to move, and then to delete from data source. Perhaps, extent of hardware data compression will be higher, but program compression allows to make it more thinly. This technology allows to operate with records of the database, but not blocks on a disk.

Among proposed solutions of program compression it is possible to select the software of Informatica Data Archive. In addition to the solution of the above-stated task this software has additional functionality. Usually data transfer in archive means that they will not be available to reading any more. For the address to them it will be necessary to take these data from archive and to load back into the initial database. Informatica Data Archive offers a bit different approach: data from the compressed file remain are available via the ODBC interface. Such technology discloses ample opportunities on data integration for the different purposes of the company.

Using such approach, the user has an opportunity of seamless data access of any depth irrespective of the place of their storage. The IT department of the organization cuts down expenses on disk space and costs for maintenance of the systems taken out of service, but all the same available to applications and users of the company. Thus, the organization can solve at the same time several important problems: reduce costs for servers and expensive disks, completely having an opportunity to use all data for all the time of life of the organization and not to worry about performance of the used solutions.