ILM, Archiving and Nearline Storage (NLS). How do these 3 topic areas interact?
ILM is a combination of processes and technologies whose goal is to provide the right information at the right time and place with the lowest possible costs over the required life time of the data. An archive is one area where any kind of application data can reside, beside ERP and BI databases. ILM manages the transition between ERP data bases, BI data bases and archive systems to achieve the described goals. Nearline Storage is a new category of data persistency that is similar to archiving. The overall goal is to take read-only data out of the database system and to put it on cheaper devices (normally file systems) without loosing the ability to direct access the data for analysis and ETL purposes. Therefore, NLS providers typically display NLS data in SQL interfaces: wherever the data resides, whatever format it might have, and how high the compression rates might be. Thus, one definite benefit of NLS is a lower TCO for customers. Other aspects like compliance or legal requirements
