Information life-cycle management is grabbing the attention of IT executives, because the discipline promises to reduce the cost of many IT operations through automation and deployment of policy-based IT systems and tools.

In theory, QoS improves, while management and equipment costs for storage, replication, classification and security diminish. ILM also aids in protecting data for regulatory-compliance initiatives.

ILM implementation requires a clear and visible strategy. IT managers must dedicate personnel and operational resources, and also improve their understanding of how data must be handled. Launching an ILM project requires integrating, synchronizing — and perhaps even unifying — the plans of disparate organizations outside of IT. At many organizations, irrespective of their size, turf wars and other political considerations can turn out to be serious impediments to the process.

Although vendors may have you believe otherwise, ILM is not a single product you can purchase. It’s a combination of technologies, services and, as much as anything else, an understanding of stakeholder requirements.

Involvement of folks from other parts of the business is vital. As ILM moves data to different tiers of storage as the data’s value, placement needs or application requirements change, what deserves top-flight storage today may deserve only second-tier storage later, and may be archived to tape further down the road.

How do we know when requirements change? A key part of the process will be to have organizations develop valid methods for valuing the information they use.