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Information lifecycle management is a company’s strategy for organizing and maintaining digital information, from creation to disposal. It involves five stages: creation, distribution, maintenance, use, and disposal. The process is dictated by the company’s goals and related to its overall IT policies. Data is maintained and organized for use in business decisions, and disposal policies are in place for data that is no longer useful. Legal issues may cause data to be frozen or removed from the general flow.
Information lifecycle management is the name given to the strategies and policies a company uses to maintain and organize digital information. It is the modern evolution of strategies used to manage physical data such as that stored on paper, film and other physical media. A piece of data undergoes five stages of information lifecycle management. These are creation, distribution, maintenance, use and disposal.
With information lifecycle management, the movement and storage of a piece of data is controlled from the moment it is created to the moment it ceases to be useful. This usually occurs in a business context, although information lifecycle management can also be used to retain data for government or other purposes. A company’s information lifecycle management policy is dictated by the overall goals of the organization and is closely related to its overall information technology policies.
The process begins with the creation or receipt of new information. The data can be created internally, such as when an accountant prepares a budget for the organization, or it can be received from someone outside the company. This can include forms, correspondence or reports.
The information is then distributed. Internally, data is passed on to company workers and executives who may need it to make policy decisions. The data can also be distributed externally to suppliers, customers or shareholders.
Subsequently, the information can be used to help make business decisions or guide company policy. Throughout the process of use and distribution, information must be maintained. Maintenance includes the storage, retrieval and transfer of information. For information to be useful, the business must organize it in a predetermined sequence and have a system in place to manage it. Processes for tracking data during use are also part of the maintenance phase.
Finally, the information is subject to availability. This is the established policy for handling information that has become less valuable over time. Such data is accessed less frequently and may have already met retention requirements under governmental or organizational regulations.
In a well-organized information lifecycle management system, data moves smoothly through these five steps. An exception is when the company gets involved in a lawsuit. In this case, some data may be frozen or removed from the general data flow until the legal issue can be resolved.
