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The post How Archive As A Service Lets You Lose Those Information Silos appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . There are a number of things that cloud storage services can do well. They can offer affordable resources, whether you’re starting out or extending from an existing setup. They can make those resources highly reliable and almost infinitely scalable (let’s just say, you’re unlikely to ever bump up against any limits.) And, last but by no means least; they can bring different parts of an organization together. With many enterprises still struggling to break down the barriers that prevent proper information flow, cloud storage services can be a boon for that reason alone. Archive as a Service offers additional “anti-information silo” features that become increasingly important as a company grows.   Demonstrating Compliance: Everybody’s Headache To a greater or lesser degree, every business is bound by regulations and a need to practice and demonstrate compliance with those regulations. If you’re operating as a sole trader, then to start with you’ll need to keep records for taxes. If your business has employees, departments, branch offices, then you can look forward to accounting, health and safety, traceability, consumer protection, medical confidentiality and more, according to the sector in which you operate. Trying to get each department to conform to compliance regulations is a challenge in itself. Trying to check that each one has done its duty can be even more difficult.   Cloud Archival as Your Aspirin The first thing that Archive as a Service does is to federate all those otherwise isolated initiatives to conserve historical and compliance data. As an added bonus, the central storage not only guarantees data is kept safely, but Archive as a Service can also prevent any tampering with or unauthorized destruction of data, whether by accident or by design. By combining cloud archiving with cloud backup services you can extend that protection, store different versions with their individual timestamps and be ready for disaster recovery if required.   No More Capital Outlay Private archival systems can get expensive, fast. They require more and more capacity, as more and more data accumulates and regulations become increasingly demanding. Cloud-based Archive as a Service obviates the need for laying out large hunks of cash. It provides the capacity you need for smaller monthly fees and lets you scale up smoothly, instead of having to buy a complete new archival server each time. More than this however, you can let the service provider do the work on making sure that the systems remain up to date and properly maintained. When you consider that archiving can last for years or decades, not having to worry about hardware refreshes in between can be a big help.   Retention Policies, Discovery and Beyond Archiving is done so that information can be found again if required. But not all information should be archived or kept beyond a certain time limit. Archive as a Service lets you define and apply enterprise-wide policies for how long different types of data are retained and when information can or should be deleted. You can also search across the whole organization, which is important too for any legal requirements to comply with data sharing or discovery. And once you’ve got your different departments all ‘singing from the same song sheet’ for archiving, you can turn your attention to breaking down any other information silos that exist: for example, in your supply chain or leveraging innovative ideas. Archive as a Service maybe the end destination for much of your information, but that doesn’t stop it from being the starting point for a more unified, efficient and effective organization.   ***** Author Bio: Natalie Lehrer is a senior contributor for CloudWedge . In her spare time, Natalie enjoys exploring all things cloud and is a music enthusiast. Follow Natalie’s daily posts on Google Plus , Twitter @Cloudwedge , or on Facebook . Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kulturarvsprojektet/6498637005/in/photolist-aUgdnB-aUghg6-7MD3dV-6zikYQ-8uDviZ-dSNCNT-G7hwY-FeWvD-fmtgQn-2XevxG-Mhc6R-Mhc7n-bH8xmk-5a4ToF-8JPib7-c5eEWw-fApYgF-cmXzG-aUg8cx-Mh1of-Mh1pq-8BFk82-aUg5p6-epa4xw-3nsq5E-jqCNfw-dYsB4V-8uGuMb-Mh1oQ-epa7My-epa5HW-epa8d5-epa5rC-eodUdx-eodTmp-epa6K5-jL2Khe-dYSxB1-Mh1om-4uZkio-EfQVB-aAyYzA-eLz2Kp-3nQM8v-3nVgnY-fvGq3x-6tqxy2-cXkMNS-itgAn2-mhCYtN web hosting Continue reading →