Wanted to get some thoughts on what people are doing for
 Long Term Data Retention - specifically on obsolete applications.

Say we have an NT 4.0 system that is no longer used.  Business
owner says we need to keep for 25 years.  I know not
 practical/possible for a number of reasons.  Even if we Vmware it,
 will they support NT 4.0 for 25 years?  (Will ANYBODY support
Windows 2008 in 25 years?)

I know even if they take a DB dump and I Archive it for 25 years, if
we retrieve the file 20 years from now, who can decipher it?  There
are several systems here that people are giving hints that they want
to do this.

I have hinted that they need to take whatever data and dump it
to a text or pdf file and then I archive that.  I realize that this may
not be that simple for some applications as probably involves
more than a simple data dump or whatever.  Plus some applications
are spread across multiple servers.

So, before we have big meeting and I push the text or pdf file
idea, what are people doing for retention of data on obsolete
servers/applications?

Thanks,
David Longo



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