Software Bundles to Meet Compliance Regulations
by Arminda Jurgenson
Marketing Manager
Since the onset of Sarbanes-Oxley, SEC, HIPAA, USA Patriot Act, and Financial Services Authority retention requirements, software companies are helping businesses to easily and seamlessly reach their compliance needs. These regulations left many businesses, especially in the financial services, life sciences, and public sector industries, scrambling to accomplish a data management process to organize and store mass quantities of data that may have been neglected prior to legal regulations. Fortunately, technology and solution companies recognize the pains and bottlenecks to help alleviate some of the planning and design complications.
As one highly-regarded solution, IBM created a secure and highly available bundled environment to match this need in its TotalStorage DR550 offering. As a top hardware and software solution, it seamlessly integrates top performance hardware capabilities with an unmatched software bundle that is reliable and automated. This bundle combines three main software components: High Availability Cluster Multi-Processing (HACMP) for AIX, DS4000 Storage Manager Version 8.47, and Tivoli Storage Manager for Data Retention. In addition to these three, the addition of a content management application is required to complete the overall solution. These four pieces placed together create an effective answer to bring the top of the line POWER5 processors and DS4000 Storage technology into an easily managed data retention environment. It is an ideal solution to retain:
-
Email and communication archives
-
Inactive data from ERP data stores
-
Inactive tables/rows from databases, including DB2 and Oracle
-
Optical replacement
-
Digital media, engineering drawings, and similar
-
Any corporate asset worth protecting
Through this solution, virtually any type of electronic data can be stored and accessed to meet your compliance regulations.
HACMP for Dual-Nodes
HACMP ensures availability in the hardware components. In a dual node configuration, HACMP enables communication between the two nodes, where in the event of a failure in one node, the resources automatically transfer to the working node. By sending heartbeats between the networked cluster nodes, HACMP monitors the health of each node. In the event that a heartbeat is not found, the application will immediately identify and rectify potential hazards, by transferring resources and granting the business 24x7 access to that environment. In today’s global economy, this software alone is a valuable resource, but by bringing it into this bundle, the value to the overall solution is greatly enhanced.
DS4000 Storage Manager Version 8.47
The DS4100, formerly named FAStT until the 2004 rebranding initiative by IBM, installed in the DR550 solution allows on demand storage of up to 56 TB in a dual-node configuration. In order to create a centralized management system while keeping data retention as the ultimate goal in mind, IBM created the Storage Manager Version 8.47 specifically for this solution.
Storage Manager Version 8.47 enhancements create another level of data protection, by safeguarding against deletion of data regardless of accidental deletion or malicious intent. The software creates an easy management system for administrators by allowing them to easily:
Unlike the other out-of-the-box Storage Manager offerings, this one is only available in the DR550 solution as it is specifically designed to bring data retention to the next level. It is a special version of Storage Manager with custom capabilities, and should not be replaced or upgraded with a standard version of Storage Manager, otherwise some of these custom capabilities may be lost.
In essence, this component of the four software elements complements the bundle by creating the ease of use and manageability in the storage of the data. It has the enhanced features to better manage the data protection, but alone it would not be a top application to meet the new business needs.
Tivoli Storage Manager for Data Retention
As the big gun of the bundle, this software acts as the key to the data retention. Utilized with any content management application that supports the Tivoli Storage Manager API Client (IBM engaged numerous software vendors who have committed to improving their interoperability over the past year), this application is also vendor neutral in the storage technology, be it disk, tape, optical, etc.
The main point of this product, though, lies in its ability to meet compliance regulations. This software brings about one possible solution to the Sarbanes-Oxley problem. Its functionality revolves around the underlying legal aspects through three main features:
-
Expiration/Deletion Suspension
Through deletion holds, businesses can ensure that their data will not be changed or deleted until that hold is removed.
-
Event-based Retention Management
To manage to data that is dependent upon an external event, a business can define the data retention policy to protect that data for a certain length of time after the completion of the event, as in financial institutions holding documents seven years after the next year’s taxes are filed rather than seven years after the data is stored.
-
Data Retention Protection
Any data will be retained and protected until the retention criteria is met, protecting the business from both accidental mismanagement and criminal intent—short of destroying the disks or database.
Through these policy-based data management capabilities, any business merely must define their retention guidelines and apply them to this application to protect themselves legally. Then if an extraneous situation occurs, such as a court mandate, that business may simply put a deletion hold on the data to protect it beyond its assigned retention criteria. In a way, this application can be seen as the rule maker for the DR550 solution bundle.
Content Management Application
Though this application is not bundled with the DR550, its presence is imperative to the solution—in the same way that documents would be vital to the use of a file cabinet and filing organization system. The only requirement in the choosing of this application is that it is operable with the Tivoli Storage Manager API Client. Fortunately, the roadmaps for Content Management Application Vendor Support have reached their fruition at the end of 2004. Applications are now available from:
Regardless of the specific brand, the content manager application will integrate smoothly into the DR550 to produce an all-around solution.
Achieve Compliance Quickly
The DR550 is not the only solution to meet the compliance issues of data retention, but it is a great way to achieve those requirements and a solution that Business Partners across the country, including Datatrend, are standing behind. The three software components, plus the content manager application, matched with powerful technology in a pre-configured and completely cabled solution make data retention into a non-issue. In a time where legal regulations are becoming increasingly stringent, businesses often need a quick fix, and recent polls and surveys have found that a high percentage of companies are not meeting their compliance regulations.
For example, according to an on-line poll conducted by the Sarbanes-Oxley Forum (
http://www.sarbanes-oxley-forum.com/), 30% of companies, when asked what stage they are at in Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, stated that they are just beginning research, while nearly 19% have not yet started. These are the type of organizations that best match the DR550 solution. A bundled solution such as this will cut the planning and design time in half while still providing a safe, reliable, and available solution.
Datatrend's TrendSetter eNewsletter
January 15, 2005
