For a quick Friday afternoon response:

There has been some discussion on this from time to time.
In one respect it boils down to this:

You can do the research on media and how long it lasts etc.etc.
But, the main point of having long term stuff is being able at some
future point, to retrieve and reliably interpret the date i.e. make reports
or just printout som of the data.

As I heard some state recently, "If i gave you a WordPerfect 1.0 document
og 8 inch floppy, what would you do with it?  Do you still have OS and
App program to enable you to read it?"

Could you read anything that was stored 30 years ago - today?

The conclusion seems to be for LONG TERM stuff, store in some
text or generic format - not Oracle DB's etc. Use good media but have 
a way to rotate stored data to new technology at some regular interval - 
5, 7, 10 years.  Keep at least 2 copies in different physical locations.

Well, that's enough for now.




David B. Longo
System Administrator
Health First, Inc.
3300 Fiske Blvd.
Rockledge, FL 32955-4305
PH      321.434.5536
Pager  321.634.8230
Fax:    321.434.5525
david.longo AT health-first DOT org


>>> Wards AT BMCMASK DOT COM 03/15/02 04:11PM >>>
*SMers..

In the very near future I will need to put together a software and hardware
proposal for data retention  of approximately 50 years due to FDA
regulations encompassing the medical industry.

My main question would be the type of media to use currently that has any
kind of magneto retention life-span nearing or surpassing this.

If there are any *SM colleagues out there that are in this situation, I
would really appreciate either some feedback on this board, some direct
feedback via email or even a discussion over the phone.

I thank you all in advance.

Stu Ward
wards@<nospam>bmcmask.com



"MMS <health-first.org>" made the following
 annotations on 03/15/02 17:02:02
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
This message is for the named person's use only.  It may contain This message 
is for the named person's use only.  It may contain confidential, proprietary, 
or legally privileged information.  No confidentiality or privilege is waived 
or lost by any mistransmission.  If you receive this message in error, please 
immediately delete it and all copies of it from your system, destroy any hard 
copies of it, and notify the sender.  You must not, directly or indirectly, 
use, disclose, distribute, print, or copy any part of this message if you are 
not the intended recipient.  Health First reserves the right to monitor all 
e-mail communications through its networks.  Any views or opinions expressed in 
this message are solely those of the individual sender, except (1) where the 
message states such views or opinions are on behalf of a particular entity;  
and (2) the sender is authorized by the entity to give such views or opinions.

==============================================================================