Moving Beyond Information Life Cycle Management

W H I T E P A P E R

Stephen WidenProduct Marketing Manager

June 2004

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The Impact of Growing DataAccording to industry analysts, data is growing at a rate of 20–40% annually, and the individualsresponsible for storing and protecting that data are being asked to do so with reduced staffing and atlower costs, while increasing service levels. Executives are now personally responsible for ensuringthat their organizations’ approaches to handling data complies with new regulations and mitigatesrisk. Employees have an increasing need for immediate access to information in order to performtheir jobs. Companies often need to share data more effectively both within and outside theorganization. There is continual pressure to do more with less and at a faster rate.

In an attempt to address these issues, organizations are constantly seeking and trying new solutionsto be more efficient and productive. However, the result is often a very complex IT environment thatincludes multiple hardware and software components that might not work well together.

To make information and storage management more effective and responsive, businesses needto align the IT environment with business initiatives and make intelligent decisions that help drive thebusiness forward.

The Current Focus of ILMILM is the process of managing data from its creation to its eventual removal. From a storage perspective,this involves moving the data through different types of storage media (for example, from disk totape to an offsite vault), enabling organizations to leverage the most cost-effective storage options.

Historically, data was often moved from one medium to another based primarily on its age orhow frequently it was accessed. The older or less regularly used the data, the more likely it was tobe moved to low-cost, low-performance, less-accessible systems. However, this posed problems fororganizations that needed immediate access to information that is not often used. For example,medical records might be old or accessed infrequently, but in an emergency they must be instantlyavailable. A more valid way to determine where and how long to store data is based on the value ofthe data to the business.

Executive SummaryInformation life cycle management (ILM) is one of the most widelydiscussed initiatives in the storage industry today. Although its definitionvaries from vendor to vendor, most agree that ILM involves aligninginformation, data and storage management with business use — in otherwords, managing data differently at different points in time based on itschanging business value. This concept has been embraced to varyingdegrees by vendors in the information technology (IT) industry, especiallyby storage vendors. The hoped-for promise of ILM is increasedoperational efficiencies and corresponding lower costs.

This white paper reviews ILM as it is currently understood andoutlines the vision of Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA) forwhat ILM will be as it extends beyond a storage-only perspective. It alsodescribes the current intelligent storage management solutions offeredunder CA’s BrightStor® brand and presents a road map for solutionsmoving forward in the context of ILM.

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Defining the value of a given piece of data involves many factors. How critical is the informationto the operations of the business? How important is it to have immediate access to the data? Must itbe retained for a certain period of time due to government regulations?

In addition, the value of data changes over time. For example, while an order is beingprocessed, the value of the associated data — the product being purchased, the shipping address ofthe customer, the billing information — is high and the data must be stored on a high-performancesystem that offers the best availability. However, once the order is filled, the value of that data dropsand it can be moved to a more cost-effective storage device. Conversely, if the customer later needswarranty support, the value of the data once again rises as employees need access to historicalinformation about the order. As the value of a given piece of data changes over time, it must behandled appropriately in order to minimize the costs associated with storage.

By evaluating the business value of data over time, it’s possible to create storage policies that canbe automated, thereby simplifying storage management, reducing administrative costs and the risks ofhuman error, increasing the efficiency of the organization and providing greater control over the data.

Currently, ILM focuses on developing a storage infrastructure in which data can be moved tothe most efficient form of storage hardware based on the value of that data at a given point in time.As shown in Figure 1, this involves a number of different areas associated exclusively with storagemanagement and, in some cases, content management.

Expanding the Scope of ILMWhile implementing ILM is an important first step in properly protecting and retaining data, trulyeffective ILM must encompass more than traditional storage management. It must extend to includeother disciplines, such as asset management and security, as shown in Figure 2.

For example, to leverage a complete enterprise management solution, it’s necessary to have aninventory of not only the storage resources available, but also other hardware and infrastructureelements. Asset management offers both an initial assessment and an ongoing understanding ofyour entire enterprise.

Likewise, while providing easy access to information is an important aspect of ILM, it’s equallyimportant to control that access, making sure that only authorized individuals can view or retrievesensitive information. Effective access management provides one of the necessary levels of security.

DataMover

DataProtection

ContentManagement

HSM

Archiving

Information,Data,

StorageIntelligence

EmailArchiving

Figure 1. Today’s ILM view

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The Road to Comprehensive ILMCA has developed a long-term strategy that addresses not only the ILM needs of today, but provides direction for managing information as an asset to the business in the future. This strategy enablesour customers to begin laying their ILM foundations today and build on those foundations at theirown pace, with the flexibility to choose the right solutions for their businesses.

This strategy reflects what we see as the ILM Maturity Model, as illustrated in Figure 3. Thereare four levels to the model, with each higher level delivering increased alignment of IT to the needsof the business based on information value and greater degrees of automation.• Level 1: Storage Management and data protection were implemented in years past. They had

virtually no automation capabilities and, in most cases, were very labor-intensive and typicallyreactive in nature.

The CA strategy for helping customers implement ILM and more extended solutions overthe next few years maps to Levels 2–4 of the ILM Maturity Model and includes deliverablesalong the way, as shown in Figure 4. Customers can plan for reaching this unified business and IT goal at their own pace, taking advantage, over time, of the solutions and services offeredthroughout the various levels of the ILM Maturity Model.

• Level 2: Intelligent Storage Management encompasses BrightStor intelligent storagemanagement solutions, as well as eTrust™ and Unicenter® products and services from CA and our partners, all of which are available today. BrightStor provides a comprehensive offering withintegrated storage resource management, storage area network management, and backup andrestore solutions. This will give customers the knowledge, understanding and informationnecessary to make the right decisions for their storage operations and businesses.

Figure 2. Managing information assets in the future

PredictiveAnalysis

Work FlowManagement

Chargeback

AssetManagement

Security

RiskManagement

Compliance

DataMover

DataProtection

ContentManagement

HSM

Archiving

Information,Data,

StorageIntelligence

EmailArchiving

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• Level 3: Business Content Management focuses on offering enhanced document and contentmanagement, message archiving and hierarchical storage management (HSM). During this phase,we also plan to tighten the integration of the products within the various CA brand families anddevelop solution packages that are targeted toward specific industries, such as small andmedium-sized businesses, health care and financial services.

BrightStor® Document Manager is available now; other components will be delivered in thenear future.

• Level 4: Unified Business and IT View leverages common services (that is, softwarecomponents that perform reusable functions across multiple management disciplines), developinga central management database, and providing a single view of all aspects of the enterprise tomanage information intelligently, efficiently and securely, and to align these information assetswith the goals of the business.

Figure 3. ILM Maturity Model

Figure 4. CA’s Delivery of the ILM Maturity Model

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Intelligent Storage Management

Intelligent storage management is based on a storage strategy that includes a complete, integratedand open storage management infrastructure. Since CA offers a comprehensive portfolio ofmanagement software solutions, our approach for this phase can leverage not only storagemanagement solutions, but also integrated security management, infrastructure management andother management disciplines. In addition, since virtually all CA technology is built on open industrystandards, we can manage software provided by other vendors, simplifying the management ofcomplex, heterogeneous environments.

Intelligent storage management is an ongoing process that entails four steps:• Identifying key business processes and information, data, networking and storage assets• Classifying those processes and the information, data and storage assets based on their

business value• Defining storage policies and processes to support business requirements, and implementing

the appropriate storage management infrastructure• Automating the defined policies and processes

The first step involves assessing what procedures and assets you currently have. This typicallyincludes identifying those activities that are critical to your business, the data required and generatedby those activities, and the servers and other devices available to store that data. BrightStor® SANDesigner can help you both audit your current storage area network (SAN) and rapidly develop thebest design for your unique needs. If you need assistance with evaluating your current infrastructure,CA Technology Services™ offers SAN assessment and optimization services based on industry bestpractices that can be tailored to your particular environment.

Once the identification process is complete, you can then begin to classify what you have —that is, evaluate the business value of your processes, data and assets. This includes ascertaininghow important particular information is to a given process, how quickly or how often the informationneeds to be accessed by all members of the organization, as well as how long it needs to beretained to comply with business needs and government regulations. Information is able to be placedon the most cost-effective storage media with the right attributes (such as protection, security,performance and so on) based on your assessment of its value to the business.

Figure 5. Intelligent Storage Management Process

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After you have classified your assets, you can begin to define policies and processes forhandling your information assets appropriately, based on their business value. For example, if youdetermine that monthly sales reports must be immediately available to sales and marketingexecutives for up to three years in order to monitor and respond to business trends, you canestablish a storage policy that supports that goal.

Finally, to help streamline operations and reduce administrative costs, you can leverageBrightStor solutions to automatically take action based on your established policies. For example, youcan use BrightStor® Storage Resource Manager to automatically run BrightStor® ARCserve® Backup toregularly back up high-value data.

The process of identification, classification, definition and automation is not a one-time event, butrather a continual activity. As new business processes are added, new business data is created andmust be managed. As the value of business data changes over time, it must be handled appropriately.Storage resources must be regularly optimized or expanded as storage needs increase, as well asmonitored for availability and performance. All this requires ongoing evaluation of your storage needs.

Throughout each step of this process, it’s also important to consider the role that othermanagement technologies play. Security, asset management and other disciplines are critical inultimately aligning all of IT — not just storage — with the business. CA can assist you in addressingthese needs through our eTrust™, Unicenter® and other solutions. By offering a comprehensivesolution, CA enables you to get the most out of all your IT assets.

Business Content Management

According to industry analysts, most business information exists in unstructured documents — wordprocessing files, spreadsheets, emails and so forth — and employees spend a great deal of their timesimply locating the information they need. Tracking, revising and maintaining business documents isexpensive in terms of both employee time and infrastructure overhead. Business content managementsolutions enable you to efficiently manage the process of business information development.

Figure 6. Document management process

Content management starts when a document is created and continues throughout its entirelife cycle, as shown in Figure 6. To address the needs of all these stages, content managementsolutions typically support indexing (content search), check in/check out, versioning and annotations.

CA’s recently announced BrightStor Document Manager is part of our overall information anddata management strategy. This customizable, web-based application manages electronic documentsand other files from inception to archive, providing centralized storage, search facilities, versioncontrol, automated work flow, access control and publishing capabilities.

As part of this phase, CA also plans to deliver message archiving and HSM capabilities. Inaddition, integration with other critical IT disciplines, such as security and asset management, willprovide users with a more complete, enterprise-wide management view.

Unified Business and IT View

In this phase, CA will provide an integrated, business-oriented IT view of the entire enterprise in fourmajor areas: operations, storage, security and application life cycle, as shown in Figure 7. This will beachieved through a set of common services and a centralized management database, which willprovide a single, integrated view of all enterprise assets.

With our all-encompassing management capabilities and intelligence mechanisms, as depictedin Figure 7, CA’s solutions will be able to closely align IT with the business and provide the right ITservices on-demand.

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Life

Cycle

Security Sto

rage

Operations

Optimization

Ass

ets, People, Policies

CommonServices

MDB

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vice

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iver

y

Financial Administration

Service

Support

Service Management

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JobOptimization

Desktop &Servers

Applications &Databases

Networks &Systems

TestingChange,Config. &MetadataAnalysis,

Modeling & Construction

BusinessModeling &

Requirement

BusinessPortfolioPlanning

Identity& Access

Management

ThreatManagement

SecurityInformation

Management

DataAvailability

StorageManagement

InformationLife Cycle

Management

Figure 7. Business-oriented IT

© 2004 Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA). All trademarks, trade names, service marks and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies. This documentis for your informational purposes only. To the extent permitted by applicable law, CA provides this document “AS IS” without warranty of any kind, including, without limitation,any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. In no event will CA be liable for any loss or damage, direct or indirect, from theuse of this document, including, without limitation, lost profits, business interruption, goodwill or lost data, even if CA is expressly advised of such damages. MP252080704

ConclusionWith the exponential growth of business information and data, and the increasing demands beingplaced on IT organizations, it’s more important than ever for companies to develop an informationasset strategy that reflects the value of business information and data, and encompassestechnologies that extend beyond the traditional focus of storage management. Once this is done, ITorganizations will be able to manage information as a valuable asset, and support business processesintelligently and cost-effectively.

CA’s BrightStor intelligent storage management solutions meet today’s need to manage andprotect information from the laptop to the data center, from files to databases to applications. WithBrightStor solutions, customers can place the right data on the right asset at the right time with theright level of protection and security to support their businesses. The integrated design of BrightStorsolutions also allows us to extend their capabilities in the future, making information, data andstorage management an integral part of business-focused enterprise management and enablingbusiness-oriented IT through managing on-demand.

With more than 28 years of management software experience and expertise, CA is uniquelyqualified and positioned to help customers achieve their business goals, now and in the years to come.

For more information, visit ca.com/brightstor