The most important issue to my way of thinking is the format with which you
archive.  I believe that it makes no sense to archive data in its native
format.  For instance, in the case of a database, archiving the database
itself, that is the binary images, makes no sense.  How will you read that
data 2, 5, 7, 10 years from now?  You won't that's how.  I advocate
exporting the data to some textual format, perhaps CSV so the data can be
easily imported into some application and massaged.

Second issue is to only archive that which you are required to archive.
Most folks simply archive everything hoping that will ensure they have
something.  Unfortunately when that is done it is likely you will have
archived something you distinctly did not want to have lying around.

There is a white paper I wrote a number of years ago that appears to be
relevant again:

http://www.storsol.com/cfusion/template.cfm?page1=wp_whyaisa&page2=blank_men
u

A number of other papers are at:

http://www.storsol.com/cfusion/template.cfm?page1=whitepapers&page2=blank_me
nu

Kelly J. Lipp
Storage Solutions Specialists, Inc.
PO Box 51313
Colorado Springs CO 80949-1313
(719) 531-5926
Fax: (240) 539-7175
Email: lipp AT storsol DOT com or lipp AT storserver DOT com
www.storsol.com
www.storserver.com