Storage creates jobs

By VIKKI BLAND

As electronic data storage needs increase, industry experts believe a new IT profession is in the making.

Mike Cribbens, storage solutions manager for IT implementers ATL Technologies, says the electronic data storage needs of organisations worldwide are increasing through more business use of email, e-business tools; digital photography - and through changes in legislation.

"In the near future, organisations will need to appoint governance information managers. In the same way there are database administrators, specialist information managers will be responsible for meeting the legislative requirements around storing electronic data," says Cribbens.

New Zealand law is already beginning to dictate what New Zealand organisations can and cannot delete from computer and data backup systems and local arms of international companies must meet the electronic storage legislative requirements of the parent company.

"So a New Zealand company, with an Australian parent, which in turn has a US parent, will require its New Zealand arm to adhere to US electronic data storage legislation," says Cribbens.

In New Zealand, one example is the requirement to store tax records for at least seven years. While much of this information is now stored electronically by companies, the required amount of time for it to be kept stored has not changed.

Another example is email. Email specialists BrightMail say a whopping 15 billion emails originating from the Asia-Pacific region were scanned in May alone. With electronic communications now permissible in support of New Zealand legal processes, many companies strive to store email indefinitely.

Also driving the need for electronic storage management is data generated by business web sites. According to web monitoring firm Nielsen//NetRatings, the Web site TradeMe, which sells auction services, is New Zealand's most visited "shopping" site. In July alone, TradeMe clocked up 952,244 unique visitors or about 35 per cent of all internet traffic on the .co.nz domain.

Sam Morgan, director of TradeMe, told i-start Magazine in August TradeMe stores details of its electronic auctions "back forever."

"It's a big effort. We store auction records and copy them off to different media depending on how old they are. The Electronic Transactions Bill requires us to do this anyway," said Morgan.

Cribbens says the electronic storage market is growing at a rate of about 70 per cent a year for vendor products and services.

"There's user expectation of being able to quickly access stored data and external demand as New Zealand companies go global."

Clearly, New Zealand businesses should be thinking about data storage needs and people skilled in data storage management. But how do they go about that? And is there any such thing as a future proof storage device? Cribbens says there is.

"A business can separate their storage units from their processing units and implement a [dedicated] storage area network (SAN). Future-proof SAN configurations exist."

SANs have traditionally been the domain of big business because of cost (entry level SANs cost around $25,000 to implement), however Cribbens says costs are coming down as SAN components including hardware and software are standardised.

What's wrong with just doing daily data back-ups to tape, which is then stored off-site?

Cribbens says the two approaches have different uses and should be used in tandem.

"A tape is good archival technology. But backup is only a small part of business continuity. If you back up to tape every day at 8pm then lose your database serving 1500 people at 5pm, you've effectively lost the day."

He says SAN technologies take regular "snapshots" of data throughout the day then copy the information to other locations on the SAN.

"A decision to use a SAN is not down to the amount of data you store. It's down to how important the data is," says Cribbens.

So will managing VIP data attract VIP pay? A quick glance at the IT section of seek.co.nz and local section of the Hudson.com web site reveals more than 20 jobs either dedicated to or requiring an element of SAN management. Published salaries range between $70K and $130K - but then, raises are probably in store.


Legally bound


Details of the Electronic Transactions Bill (2002) can be found at:

http://www.med.govt.nz/irdev/elcom/transactions/bill/" target="new">Electronic Transactions Bill

Commonly repeated wording in the bill refers to keeping electronic information so it is "readily accessible so as to be usable for subsequent reference."

Information on the IRD requirements for keeping electronic tax records can be found at:

IRD

"If you are keeping these records electronically, take care to keep adequate back-up copies of the important records. You must keep these records for seven years from the year that they were created."

- IRD web site, Sept 2004