Checklist for developing an effective Data Retention Policy

Online Data Backup

Part 3: In our previous two areas of this series, we examined the history of information retention policies and also the business and legal requirements that dictate what underlying issues you face when writing your data retention policy.Partly two, we took a look at the challenges that different industries face with regards to what data to keep and for how long. And even though each company has different requirements, the common thread to every single data retention policy is your info is everywhere . Encompassing all of it may be nearly impossible although this checklist isn't exhaustive, it’s a great foundation to the data retention policy. Combined with a professional data backup system, you’ll relax knowing your important information is protected and simply recoverable.During this final installment, we offer a data checklist and questions to ask when setting your policy.To begin with, assess everything you have. 

Your corporation has lots of categories of data you'll want to consider in your own data retention policy:
Financial data
Databases
Email
Documents
Pictures / videos
Production data
System state information

Furthermore, the location of the data must be considered. You can actually create a different DRP for each one, based on that which you keep where.
Servers - what's stored on the server?

Databases -what is stored there and how do the legal and business requirements dictate what you need to maintain and for how long?

Desktops - do you need to backup files which are saved on desktops? Therefore, how long do you need them? Typically desktop files aren't retained for as long as server data.
Email - The content in the data should be evaluated

What is in the emails? A lot of companies can experience that email is unimportant to core business, but others might use email for being an integral a part of their order processing or customer care functions. Use the case associated with a freight forwarder for example, where every email carries a document attached with key business information. That freight forwarder’s exchange server is, therefore, huge and crucial to copy. In this situation, the freight forwarder could have customers that contact them years later looking for goods that were to be sent to a particular location. On their behalf, email is important to backup. Your company will have a similar communications issue.

Recovery - how can your organization recover its data coming from a potential problem or data loss? How much time could you survive without the information you have before your organization practice will be impacted? Have a reality check of the data retention policy and inquire:

Would it give you the necessary recovery?Will it restore in the time frame and also as you needed? Test that!

Frequency - What is the danger of information loss, should you backup your details more frequently than once per day, and exactly how long can you keep your data?
- An example of the frequency of a retention policy might be:
Retain every daily backup for Ten days
Retain every weekly backup for six weeks
Retain every monthly backup for 14 months
Retain every year-end backup for 7 years

Evaluating the soundness of the data retention policy depends on asking your executive staff, is this right, would it be sufficient, and it is it cost efficient? There's a balance you’ll need to achieve between cost to keep data as well as legal requirements that your clients are subject to. Furthermore, brainstorm the “what-if’s” scenarios and discover what data would be needed to recover properly:

What if we got a partial loss of data of data such as a server failureLet's say we'd a total data loss for instance a premises disasterImagine if we had widespread corruption of data from the virusLet's say we suffered a data loss from deliberate sabotage
What if we accidentally destroyed important dataImagine if we should get back eventually for data for:

A tax audit
A labor law compliance audit
A product liability lawsuitA work practices claim
An employee tort such as a sexual harassment claim
Finally, on your own checklist, make sure there aren't any “islands of data” outside the policy -
Laptops
Desktops

Remote officesThere's no one size fits all for a data retention policy. Each company has its unique needs, cost parameters and legal requirements that can dictate what's essential and mandatory to keep this business if there is a disaster or loss of data. Begin with the checklist above and boost it to suit your individual business and legal requirements.

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