While a lot of people think that the main problem in data management is creating a sturdy architecture for backup, recovery, and archiving, EMC Corp. says that the problem is more fundamental: a lot of people do not know the difference between archiving and backup.

In a recent conference, Jon Murray, regional program manager at EMC, disclosed that many people are confused between archiving and backup.

?You?ll be surprised at how many people seem to think that these two are interchangeable,? said Murray.

While backup and archiving hail from the same family tree, the relationship is not quite close. Although both are intended to replace the original data that has gone missing, the differences between backup and archiving are substantial.

According to Murray, a backup is used to make a secondary copy of information, acting as a redundant set of data for recovery operations in case the original is deleted or damaged. It enhances availability and plays a huge role in business continuity.

?Backup is typically a short-term process of a few months, and the data is usually overwritten on a periodic basis to keep it current. It is generally not used for regulatory compliance,? explained Murray.

On the other hand, archiving involves the primary copy of information that is no longer needed on a day-to-day basis.

?The data is moved off the high availability, high performance operational environment, to something that is low costing,? Murray said. In that storage, the data waits for months or years, until it is retrieved for analysis, value generation, or for compliance to government or court-ordered directives.

Backup/recovery and archiving/retrieval are distinct but essential components of a well-prepared organization?s information lifecycle strategy. Both provide tangible benefits, especially when integrated to provide better performance, higher availability, better service levels, sharper best practices, and enhanced cost savings.

The more that an organization can figure out what to archive, the less redundant data there will be to backup repeatedly. For example, if a company can decide that 50 percent of its data is no longer being used operationally, the company can decide to archive it. In effect, the company would be getting a faster backup time of 50 percent. If the company is able to identify which data is the most important to backup, the company will then have control over information growth.