IT Consulting from the Trenches

WHY THE INFORMATION LIFE CYCLE MATTERS

Information has a life cycle. It may come as a surprise but many things do although we don’t realize it.

Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) has become more important these past few years. Its importance will only increase as a consequence of two factors: storage has become inexpensive and the Internet has kicked off a veritable barrage of data.

Before proceeding, let’s clarify the difference between information and data. What is information? How does it differ from data? Even though the two terms are frequently used interchangeably, there is a technical difference. I like this definition: information is data in a meaningful context. The number 150, for example, is data. When it stands for the quantity of calories in a cookie, then it becomes information. In this article, information and data will be used interchangeably. If one is being specifically referenced, then it shall be clearly identified as such.

When users request their IT department to recover lost data, that information is almost always less than one month old (90% of the time). When lawyers request information, that data is almost always one or more years old.

Information has a life cycle. Information is generally most valuable at the moment of its creation. When you write down an address, that information is useful until you drop off the package at the post office. In fact, many of us would probably crumple the piece of paper the address was written on immediately after the mailing label had been written.

As a rule, therefore, information declines in value with the passage of time. Why is that?

Information is knowledge that almost always needs a decision or action. When you learn that your customer tried to call you, you react. When you emailed a co-worker, it was to finalize each other's part in a project. When you wrote the address down, it was the package’s destination. In these situations, the information prompted you to make a decision and act. Three months hence, how valuable is the information? Not much although the email may have value if the project were investigated.

Information should be stored and treated according to its value. That concept has spurred the creation of concepts like tiered-storage and terms such as “on-line,” “near-line,” and “off-line” data. This will be discussed in another post.

Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) recognizes the need to manage information according to its value. These are the aspects of ILM:

1. Legal and regulatory requirements
2. Security and confidentiality
3. The path that information takes through the organization
4. Whether information is structured or unstructured
5. How aware and conscious members of the organization are about information’s value
6. The tools the organization needs to manage information
   

Before information can be managed, it must be:

1. Identified
2. Categorized
3. Classified

After these steps, the framework for managing information can finally be created.

Do all these really need to be done? Unfortunately, yes.

There is really little choice since laws and regulations are effectively mandating the need to manage information.

The best reason for doing this work however is that it makes good business sense. You have to wrap your arms around the information octopus. Once you understand it, you’ll make wiser decisions about designing your information architecture and acquiring data storage.

Remember Y2K? It turned out to be a non-event, didn’t it?

Why weren’t more critics vocal about the hundreds of millions of dollars spent preparing for it? It is because of unexpected benefit of the Y2K effort. That benefit was derived from the enormous house cleaning operation that Y2K required. Old computers were replaced by new ones. The dust was literally cleared out of hidden data closets. Equipment was identified and tagged. Data processes were finally documented. And so forth.

Enforcing ILM will result in a similar type of benefit. And that is the best reason to do it.