Client Services Director & Partner

Just when you thought you’ve heard every CxO title imaginable along comes another one - the Chief Preservation Officer (CPO).

Actually the position isn’t new - CPOs currently direct the preservation efforts of a small number libraries, film studios, government agencies, and academic institutions around the world. But that’s about to change. Read the rest of this entry »

Tired of reading the same data retention, and data backup/recovery articles rehashed seven ways from Sunday?

Good. So am I.

If I see one more tape- versus disk-based backup article I’m going to scream.

Instead, I’m going to discuss an issue that seldom, if ever, makes its way to the front page of today’s industry publications. Don’t let the lack of media and analyst attention fool you - it’s the single most important long-term data retention and recovery issue you’ll ever face. I’ll cover it briefly here, and expand the discussion in a coming research report.

The issue is the forward compatibility of data AND data structures. Few viable solutions exist today. But there’s still time to do something about it. Read the rest of this entry »

[letter to the editor, InfoStor, February 2004]

When I picked up the December issue of InfoStor, I noticed the front-page article titled “New Approaches to Managing Reference Information” - also available online. I’ve seen the term “reference information” floating around the storage industry for about a year now, so the title immediately caught my attention. Now that I’ve read the article, I have a few comments and clarifications.

The “reference information” issues raised in this article and elsewhere – e.g., searching, indexing, and long-term retention — may seem new to some people, but to anyone familiar with content management, these are issues that the content management industry began to address years ago (that is to say the *boom* began years ago). After all, “reference information” is nothing more than content. Read the rest of this entry »