Sure, with any number of ECM solutions. At the simplest end many of them simply enforce naming conventions; at the more robust end, they support many different file types for viewing, indexing, etc. and can also provide rich metadata on a document-by-document basis. Some of them have been named in the comments, including but certainly not limited to SharePoint 2007, Cygnet, Documentum, Open Text, FileNet, etc.
Any system worth looking at has a web-based interface, at least for searching, and many of them offer for more meaningful interaction as well. Alfresco, Hyland, and SpringCM all have web-based ECM solutions and more comprehensive web-based offerings are available all the time.
Oh - and if you're aerospace there are a number of regulatory requirements for information management you'll need to comply with, which does complicate the situation but spending the ducats for software and/or consulting help is probably cheaper than whatever your litigation and regulatory audit support processes cost today.
Hope this helps,
Jesse Wilkins
ECM and other stuff consultant
jwilkins13 at gmail dot com
Still not getting it. The immediate question was about media. Part of my response was about readers. You don't have any response here about being able to read the SOFTWARE and FILE FORMATS on the media. Reel-to-reel, that's nice. TI-99, hokay. How about something that can read Word 95 files in 30 years? Zywrite? Wordstar? Alchemy databases? AutoCAD 1.0? dBASE III? Etc. It's NOT the longevity, it's the ability to read what's on them. That's hardware AND software.
You've got to be kidding me - and you didn't respond to my issue, which is file formats. Tried to read a Wordperfect 4.2 or Microsoft Word 1.0 doc lately? WordStar? Xywrite? Geoworks for C64? AutoCAD v2.1? Lotus 1-2-3 v2 with macros? Now think about how much more fantastically complex a Word or Excel 2007 document is, complete with pivot tables, lotsa macro-y goodness, and you really think those will be readable in 30 years? Cause it's not like anyone would do anything important in a complex and/or proprietary format, right?
Right. And that's workable for how many organizations today? And it's not just that - Acrobat is now an ISO standard (32000). Even if you could move everyone over to e.g. OpenOffice, ODF, etc. (and don't get me started about OOXML), it still assumes there is enough interest in 30 years for someone to have created a reader for them. Yes, you or your organization might be able to do that. What about your local municipality, who "standardized" on OOXML? Or the older version of ISO 32000 or ODF that is now deprecated b/c the standards bodies found a critical issue? Just saying.
Again, missing the point. I *know* that CDs - particularly printed or stamped ones as opposed to burned or RW ones - will last plenty of time. What I question is whether you'll have anything that can read that decrepit code in 30 years or that can play that physical media in 30 years. I also take issue with your point that "it'll be easy to re-encode it"...that's only if the disk and software on it are still readable and that's only in isolation. It is not at all easy to re-encode 500GB into a different format whether we're talking about file format OR media; put the two together and there is no easy answer today. NARA's ERA ain't it, the lofty encoding schemes like OAIS and EAD ain't it.
I agree with your first point - in fact it kinda supports mine.
"if one looks" - the vast and overwhelming majority of laptops AND their users will not look; if you think there will be RS-232 connectors on those 30-yrs-from-now laptops you have much more faith in manufacturers than I do. Shopped for a laptop with 3.5" lately?
WRT VMs, my point above holds equally well - unless you move in different circles than I do ain't a lot of people loading multiple OSs and versions into VMs. And by a lot I mean more than the.01% technically inclined to do so - I mean the folks buying their laptops at Best Circuit FryMart. What about pesky licensing, pesky apps that don't run in VM because they phone home regularly for a license, pesky issues around providing VM that can fully support something as complex as Vista, etc.
As to your final point, storing data in the cloud is good WRT storage media but still raises the question of readability. It's not useful for me for Google Docs or S3 to store my PDFs if I have nothing to read them in 30 years. Or is the intent to refresh all of your file formats every 5 years or so? B/c nobody does that today. You may. I may. But that same overwhelming majority doesn't. It also raises the problem of what happens to all that data when Microsoft buys Google, or Google goes broke, or gets nationalized and that service shut down, or or or....On the other hand, refreshing the data onto new media assumes a) you do it while the media and formats on it are still readable and that you refresh the data formats and that there are no things to intrude while that 500GB of data and media and format migration is taking place like a job or life. And that number's only going to increase for most of us.
And what happens when the spring that pops the C64 floppy open finally gives out? The MFM drive? Etc. The hardware won't last forever, and even in a world of eBay goodness that's not really a viable solution for the majority of folks. I further submit that most of us don't have the familial/spousal support to keep 5 old clunkers around and operating....:)
Someone reminded me in another forum that you could always microfilm everything - microfilm only requires a light source and a magnifying source, and a drop of water in candlelight would work in a pinch. Then again, who wants to film 2 TB of data?:)
Here's the thing. Flash drives will *probably* last long enough. I wouldn't at all be surprised if they were still readable in 20 or 30 years.
But a) what's the odds of your current WinUx or iHoloTablet having a usb connector in 30 years? and MUCH more importantly, what's the odds of having anything capable of reading those historic Word 2007, Acrobat 5, or any other type of file format in 20 years?
Yes, there are some folks technical enough that they can still read and readily interact with Geoworks, Wordstar, Xywrite, etc. stored on 8" floppy disks. But if you ain't one of them, and I'm happy to admit I ain't, the fact that the flash drive is physically capable of being read in 30 years simply won't matter. That's why I crack up reading various vendors' claims of CDs, DVDs, BDs etc. lasting 50 or 100 or more years. The disks will be readable but you'll have no mechanical or logical way to read what's on them.
This article refers to changes in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and as such would applicable to all companies involved in federal litigation. Note that IANAL. You can find a number of articles providing more detail than this one, including:
Not any different from the real (paper/film) world - you're screwed if you hoard every last scrap of paper with scribbles on it, because those may be indicative of a state of mind...
And you're screwed if you throw them away (especially if you *just* throw them away as opposed to, say, shredding them), since it looks like you're trying to hide something.
The only plausible escape is in fact compliance training, typically in the context of a defined and enforced records management program with established policies and procedures, file plans, retention schedules, etc. AND have the legal team vet the results!
For more info you could visit ARMA International, the Association of Records Managers and Administrators, at http://www.arma.org./ Equivalents exist in numerous countries around the world.
And yes, it will set the company back, but I daresay less than $1.45 billion. I know consultants are expensive, but we're not THAT whorish. Most of us.:D
* Cost of storage: getting cheaper all the time, but still not free
* Cost to backup - still only 24 hours in a day in MY world, and when you're backup up hundreds of terabytes, that gets to be an issue
* Cost to restore as required to produce for discovery, or because the server slagged
* Cost to search & retrieve information
* Cost to continue to migrate stuff every 5-10 years (and see recent threads on/. about optical storage lifespans)
* Cost to keep hundreds of different file formats *after* they are swallowed by MicroDobeSoft (do YOU have any Wordperfect 4.2 or Wordstar documents?)
* Cost of having to sift through and provide only responsive documents: IANAL, but I'm guessing judges aren't as big anymore on the "drown 'em in paper" tactics - and everything provided is fair game for opposing counsel
Many different organizations, from technology companies to ARMA, the Association of Records Managers and Administrators, thinks the proposed changes are, by and large, a good thing. I agree.
Anonymous document technologies consultant:)
Absolutely agree - and as ugly as WordML, etc. are, I can strip out all of the extraneous stuff and end up with clean, reasonably reusable XML that I can then apply stylesheets to. And, if I had to, I could print it on archival paper, microfilm, etc. and store it for 500 years without loss (usual caveats, environmental conditions, etc.).
However, for the 99% of people who today ARE using, e.g., Microsoft Office or WordPerfect (who owns them these days?), it's tough to convince them that there are better, non-proprietary ways of doing business. I haven't completely switched to OpenOffice.org, but I'm getting closer & closer.
Cheers,
jay
But you also still have to migrate the software. It doesn't help for me to copy all my records from 5.25" floppy to Plasmon UDO, if the format is WordStar 2000 or Word for Windows 1.0.
I agree that the key today is to understand that media don't last forever and plan appropriately. That was the thrust of the comment. The thrust of the survey is to communicate to media (and hardware) manufacturers what is needed, not how long what is available will last: a subtle but vital difference.
The lifespan of data today is not constrained by media, but by hardware lifespan (do you have a 8" floppy?) and by software compatibility issues.
It's the hardware and software. I do some work on digital preservation, and what I have found is people in the audience have data stored on everything from the newest blue stuff from Sony (PDD) and Plasmon (UDO) back at least as far as 8" floppy disks and old Winchester platters. They have all the media, and it looks like it's OK, but they can't really tell. Why? THEY HAVE NO FUNCTIONING READERS!
And even if ya went on eBay and found a functioning 1541 or Datassette recorder for your C-64, good luck finding software that can read Xywrite, Geoworks, Wordstar, Nota Bene, etc. etc. etc. from 20 or more years ago.
When I filled out the 2-question survey, I commented that 10-20 years is sufficient GIVEN that the hardware won't be available longer than that, and the software certainly won't be. In a couple more years, after all our files are belong to XML, then maybe. But until we solve the software/file format issues, even the hardware is not the main bottleneck.
As Dr. Jeff Rothenburg said, "Digital documents last forever - or five years, whichever comes first."
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, with any number of ECM solutions. At the simplest end many of them simply enforce naming conventions; at the more robust end, they support many different file types for viewing, indexing, etc. and can also provide rich metadata on a document-by-document basis. Some of them have been named in the comments, including but certainly not limited to SharePoint 2007, Cygnet, Documentum, Open Text, FileNet, etc. Any system worth looking at has a web-based interface, at least for searching, and many of them offer for more meaningful interaction as well. Alfresco, Hyland, and SpringCM all have web-based ECM solutions and more comprehensive web-based offerings are available all the time. Oh - and if you're aerospace there are a number of regulatory requirements for information management you'll need to comply with, which does complicate the situation but spending the ducats for software and/or consulting help is probably cheaper than whatever your litigation and regulatory audit support processes cost today. Hope this helps, Jesse Wilkins ECM and other stuff consultant jwilkins13 at gmail dot com
Still not getting it. The immediate question was about media. Part of my response was about readers. You don't have any response here about being able to read the SOFTWARE and FILE FORMATS on the media. Reel-to-reel, that's nice. TI-99, hokay. How about something that can read Word 95 files in 30 years? Zywrite? Wordstar? Alchemy databases? AutoCAD 1.0? dBASE III? Etc. It's NOT the longevity, it's the ability to read what's on them. That's hardware AND software.
You've got to be kidding me - and you didn't respond to my issue, which is file formats. Tried to read a Wordperfect 4.2 or Microsoft Word 1.0 doc lately? WordStar? Xywrite? Geoworks for C64? AutoCAD v2.1? Lotus 1-2-3 v2 with macros? Now think about how much more fantastically complex a Word or Excel 2007 document is, complete with pivot tables, lotsa macro-y goodness, and you really think those will be readable in 30 years? Cause it's not like anyone would do anything important in a complex and/or proprietary format, right?
Right. And that's workable for how many organizations today? And it's not just that - Acrobat is now an ISO standard (32000). Even if you could move everyone over to e.g. OpenOffice, ODF, etc. (and don't get me started about OOXML), it still assumes there is enough interest in 30 years for someone to have created a reader for them. Yes, you or your organization might be able to do that. What about your local municipality, who "standardized" on OOXML? Or the older version of ISO 32000 or ODF that is now deprecated b/c the standards bodies found a critical issue? Just saying.
Again, missing the point. I *know* that CDs - particularly printed or stamped ones as opposed to burned or RW ones - will last plenty of time. What I question is whether you'll have anything that can read that decrepit code in 30 years or that can play that physical media in 30 years. I also take issue with your point that "it'll be easy to re-encode it"...that's only if the disk and software on it are still readable and that's only in isolation. It is not at all easy to re-encode 500GB into a different format whether we're talking about file format OR media; put the two together and there is no easy answer today. NARA's ERA ain't it, the lofty encoding schemes like OAIS and EAD ain't it.
I agree with your first point - in fact it kinda supports mine. "if one looks" - the vast and overwhelming majority of laptops AND their users will not look; if you think there will be RS-232 connectors on those 30-yrs-from-now laptops you have much more faith in manufacturers than I do. Shopped for a laptop with 3.5" lately? WRT VMs, my point above holds equally well - unless you move in different circles than I do ain't a lot of people loading multiple OSs and versions into VMs. And by a lot I mean more than the .01% technically inclined to do so - I mean the folks buying their laptops at Best Circuit FryMart. What about pesky licensing, pesky apps that don't run in VM because they phone home regularly for a license, pesky issues around providing VM that can fully support something as complex as Vista, etc.
As to your final point, storing data in the cloud is good WRT storage media but still raises the question of readability. It's not useful for me for Google Docs or S3 to store my PDFs if I have nothing to read them in 30 years. Or is the intent to refresh all of your file formats every 5 years or so? B/c nobody does that today. You may. I may. But that same overwhelming majority doesn't. It also raises the problem of what happens to all that data when Microsoft buys Google, or Google goes broke, or gets nationalized and that service shut down, or or or....On the other hand, refreshing the data onto new media assumes a) you do it while the media and formats on it are still readable and that you refresh the data formats and that there are no things to intrude while that 500GB of data and media and format migration is taking place like a job or life. And that number's only going to increase for most of us.
And what happens when the spring that pops the C64 floppy open finally gives out? The MFM drive? Etc. The hardware won't last forever, and even in a world of eBay goodness that's not really a viable solution for the majority of folks. I further submit that most of us don't have the familial/spousal support to keep 5 old clunkers around and operating.... :)
Someone reminded me in another forum that you could always microfilm everything - microfilm only requires a light source and a magnifying source, and a drop of water in candlelight would work in a pinch. Then again, who wants to film 2 TB of data? :)
Here's the thing. Flash drives will *probably* last long enough. I wouldn't at all be surprised if they were still readable in 20 or 30 years. But a) what's the odds of your current WinUx or iHoloTablet having a usb connector in 30 years? and MUCH more importantly, what's the odds of having anything capable of reading those historic Word 2007, Acrobat 5, or any other type of file format in 20 years? Yes, there are some folks technical enough that they can still read and readily interact with Geoworks, Wordstar, Xywrite, etc. stored on 8" floppy disks. But if you ain't one of them, and I'm happy to admit I ain't, the fact that the flash drive is physically capable of being read in 30 years simply won't matter. That's why I crack up reading various vendors' claims of CDs, DVDs, BDs etc. lasting 50 or 100 or more years. The disks will be readable but you'll have no mechanical or logical way to read what's on them.
This article refers to changes in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and as such would applicable to all companies involved in federal litigation. Note that IANAL. You can find a number of articles providing more detail than this one, including:
d f r ary/whitePapers/ADI_FS_Top10TipsforFRCP.pdf l -rules-of-civil-procedure.html
http://www.uscourts.gov/rules/Reports/ST09-2005.p
http://www.lexisnexis.com/applieddiscovery/lawlib
http://infogovernance.blogspot.com/2006/08/federa
http://informata.blogspot.com/
Not any different from the real (paper/film) world - you're screwed if you hoard every last scrap of paper with scribbles on it, because those may be indicative of a state of mind... :D
And you're screwed if you throw them away (especially if you *just* throw them away as opposed to, say, shredding them), since it looks like you're trying to hide something.
The only plausible escape is in fact compliance training, typically in the context of a defined and enforced records management program with established policies and procedures, file plans, retention schedules, etc. AND have the legal team vet the results!
For more info you could visit ARMA International, the Association of Records Managers and Administrators, at http://www.arma.org./ Equivalents exist in numerous countries around the world.
And yes, it will set the company back, but I daresay less than $1.45 billion. I know consultants are expensive, but we're not THAT whorish. Most of us.
Many different organizations, from technology companies to ARMA, the Association of Records Managers and Administrators, thinks the proposed changes are, by and large, a good thing. I agree. Anonymous document technologies consultant :)
However, for the 99% of people who today ARE using, e.g., Microsoft Office or WordPerfect (who owns them these days?), it's tough to convince them that there are better, non-proprietary ways of doing business. I haven't completely switched to OpenOffice.org, but I'm getting closer & closer. Cheers, jay
But you also still have to migrate the software. It doesn't help for me to copy all my records from 5.25" floppy to Plasmon UDO, if the format is WordStar 2000 or Word for Windows 1.0.
I agree that the key today is to understand that media don't last forever and plan appropriately. That was the thrust of the comment. The thrust of the survey is to communicate to media (and hardware) manufacturers what is needed, not how long what is available will last: a subtle but vital difference.
The lifespan of data today is not constrained by media, but by hardware lifespan (do you have a 8" floppy?) and by software compatibility issues.
It's the hardware and software. I do some work on digital preservation, and what I have found is people in the audience have data stored on everything from the newest blue stuff from Sony (PDD) and Plasmon (UDO) back at least as far as 8" floppy disks and old Winchester platters. They have all the media, and it looks like it's OK, but they can't really tell. Why? THEY HAVE NO FUNCTIONING READERS!
And even if ya went on eBay and found a functioning 1541 or Datassette recorder for your C-64, good luck finding software that can read Xywrite, Geoworks, Wordstar, Nota Bene, etc. etc. etc. from 20 or more years ago. When I filled out the 2-question survey, I commented that 10-20 years is sufficient GIVEN that the hardware won't be available longer than that, and the software certainly won't be. In a couple more years, after all our files are belong to XML, then maybe. But until we solve the software/file format issues, even the hardware is not the main bottleneck. As Dr. Jeff Rothenburg said, "Digital documents last forever - or five years, whichever comes first."