It is that time of year for some to reflect on the past or ponder the future.  If part of your end of year ritual includes cleaning out a cluttered closet or room in the house, consider the same ritual for the data in your databases.

As things accumulate in your closet, it makes it more difficult to find what you are looking for.  When you make purchases, out with the old, in with the new.  Finding room becomes more challenging if you don’t have a process for getting rid of the old.  As items spill out into the next room and you consider building an addition to make room, try this little exercise. Separate your collection into three piles – items used in the last two years, personal treasures and everything else.  How much room would you free up in that room if you moved “everything else” to temporary storage?  How much faster could you find that item you are looking for without all that extra clutter in the way?  This is the same process I use with companies for their overstuffed databases right before we plan out a technology upgrade or an Oracle Fusion migration.

Moving corporate records and other less frequently accessed, yet important data to an archive database makes managing those treasures a little easier because of the physical separation. Additionally, purging or compressing what you don’t need can significantly reduce the size of that primary database making the entire upgrade process faster, cheaper, and less cluttered.

The entire sorting and cleansing process not only brings peace of mind and room to grow, it can also provide that added cost avoidance bonus at the end of 2010.

To A Happy And Prosperous New Year!

Julie Lockner, President & Founder, CentricInfoTM

www.CentricInfo.com