In our experience as an IT services provider in Denver, most businesses understand the need to retain the data they process as part of their operations. A big question is— how long do companies have to retain that data? We’ve outlined the basic rules here today so that you can develop data retention policies that suit your needs and align with legal requirements.
The first part of assessing your data retention needs is to decide which data must be stored and for how long it must be retained.
The Data Retention Two-Step
The key principle of data retention is simple once you understand that “data retention” is the policies that define the persistence of your data and records in order to meet your firm’s archival needs, as well as any laws or regulations that apply to your firm.
In other words, how long do you need to keep data to comply with the law and the requirements of your business? This is the dance we call the data retention two-step.
Regulations
The regulations that define your data retention policies will vary depending on what industry you are in, your customers, and where you operate. You may be subject to HIPAA in the USA or GDPR in Europe. Other local, state, federal, and international laws and/or industry regulations may apply.
The applicable regulations will provide minimum periods for which you must retain data. They may also define the formats in which you need to store the data. Bear in mind the minimum periods defined in law may be shorter than your firm’s own requirements.
Cost of Data Storage
A further consideration for your IT services in Denver is how much you have to spend storing the data you retain. If your data storage is integrated, perhaps rationalized into public cloud platforms, it may be quite easy to calculate your storage costs. On the other hand, if your data storage is spread across many platforms, it can be harder to calculate costs. You also need to balance the cost of storage against the value of the data being stored.
We tend to find streamlining storage infrastructure makes it easier to manage both the storage and the costs. This can also make accessing data in extended storage much easier. At AccountabilIT, Inc., we provide IT services in Denver that reduce both complexity and cost. To learn more about streamlined approaches to data retention, contact us now!
