In a recent blog from Informatica’s Data Archive Product Manager, Claudia Chandra, she discusses the need for and the business value of retiring legacy applications.  This is another excellent topic on how to keep what you need and delete everything else. Purge what is not needed and reduce cost.  From a legal discussion perspective, The Sedona Conference has invested in a Working Group Series Publication on the very same topic.  The working group on Electronic Document Retention and Production (WG1) shares their insight in the paper “The Sedona Conference® Commentary on Inactive Information Sources: Guidance Principles for Identifying, Classifying, Retaining and Destroying Orphaned, Legacy and Dormant ESI”.

They categorize inactive systems based on three classifications: Orphaned, Legacy, and Dormant. Orphaned applications are just that – they don’t have an owner; no one even knows who is responsible for them.  Legacy applications reside on systems that are no longer used. Dormant applications have an owner and are on current applications, but no one has accessed the data in a long time.   These systems may sit there untouched and/or unclassified, until someone decides they are spending too much on those applications or there is a legal discovery and someone finds the old information store interesting.
Outside any pending litigation, or active legal hold or business need, an organization should avoid “excessive retention of inactive information”.  This means that if Electronically Stored Information (ESI) has not been classified or categorized in your organization, then it may become a liability.  If the aged information store has a legal retention requirement or business need, this commentary is recommended reading. It highlights a process to follow for retroactive and proactive determination of your company’s preservation obligation of these aging applications.  The Sedona Conference’s commentary is a complementary reading to Claudia’s discussion of Why Applications Don’t Matter Redux – In Fact, Why Not Eliminate Them?

Julie Lockner, Founder www.CentricInfo.com