Sometime organizations get so exited that they post al lot, and I mean multiple TB of data, on their SharePoint websites. Instead of managing the volume of your SQL database, like tuning, adding more space and more SharePoint servers, think about archiving. You will see that a lot of data is rarely touched by the people. This is not a specificaly related to SharePoint. I am sure you will notice that Exchange and file shares suffer from the same problem. The problem is often not related to the capacity of storage or servers, but often related to full backup cycles (can you do it in a weekend timeframe?) and restore time (can you recover a full MOSS site in time?).

So the problem is clear. The solution is also simple. Archive. Put data on a cheaper solution. You can put compliancy into practice too, but I just focus on efficiency here.

Starting point is that users should not be bothered with archiving. We have given them a nice collaboration platform and they are just using it as being told. Archived items should therefor remain visible and searchable from within the familiar interfaces.

Tools that can do the job are Symantec Enterprise Vault, Autonomy Zantaz and Commvault Data Archiver. I would suggest to pick one of these, because they can also do archiving for Exchange and NTFS file shares.

The result you should aim at is a 50% storage demand. And do not forget to tell your manager you are now willing to really commit to the SLA agreements.

Happy archiving!

 - Paul

Archiving has an important place in the management of information. From a records management perspective, information should only be archived if it has historical significance and should be kept forever. There should be a corporate retention policy that tells users when documents need to be destroyed or when they need to be offered to the archive for permanent storage. It is not necessary or desirable to keep everything, what is necessary and desirable is that users manage the information they have in the correct way.

What we are doing to implement this is to go through network fileshares with the users and help them to identify what information they need and what can be destroyed in line with the corporate retention policy. We then work with them to classify and organise their information into a logical fileplan, migrate their data into this new fileplan. We lock down the old file structure and leave it in lace for 3 months after which it gets deleted. The new file structure is migrated into SharePoint and the network share is deleted. Users then use SharePoint libraries to store, share and manage their information.

 We are also looking at integrating our EDRMS with SharePoint to bring the rigour of compliance to our information storage so that it removes the need for users to remember what metadata to apply to documents.

Steve