While the SNIA defines what an ILM system should accomplish, it does not specify any particular technology for implementing ILM. Archiving is one approach that can be particularly effective-if organizations follow archiving best practices to ensure the optimal management of data during its lifecycle.

Archiving best practices are as follows:

• Understand your data growth trends
• Determine your success criteria
• Establish a data retention policy
• Select a solution with pre-packaged business rules
• Customize the business rules, as needed
• Test the business rules
• Create user access policies
• Ensure restoration
• Follow a time tested methodology