January 3, 2013 – We love P4 Archive. We think it is a unique product within its market that will get more and more attention in the years to come. But we have also noticed that archiving can sometimes be an uncomfortable topic.
Why are some people not as excited about archive as others?
We think there is one simple explanation. People are pushing the topic off until later, even though they know it is a pressing topic. The reason they do this is because archiving seems to be such a huge project that you never get around to starting it. Understanding when files should be archived, what meta data you need for it and what rules one should apply, seems to be too tough to think through.
So here is the good news: We know which questions to ask. We know how you can setup the perfect archive for every environment. We feel that once we teach you the right questions and help you find the answers to them, you will love archiving as much as we do.
That’s why we have made it our goal for 2013 to make it all about P4 Archive. We want to show people what an archive is all about and how it can save tons of money.
So start getting excited about archive, because you will hear about it all year long…
Archiving has always been a fearful subject for many IT administrators. Many questions arise such as: How many years should we retain archived files? Will the LTO technology be error free? How many copies of the archives should I keep (one onsite one offsite)?
Being a small company we don’t have the luxury of having infinite file storage space. We are a graphic design studio that deals with incredibly large Hi-Res files that have to be kept active for at least 2 years. We’ve doubled our storage space in the past year due to the volume of work.
So when it comes time to start archiving files form the server; there’s always that uncertainty of deleting the files once they have been archived. Files that are archived have to be kept for at least 10 years, because we have actually gone back that far to retrieve a job for revisions.
I haven’t thoroughly read about P4’s Archive feature, but I’m interested to know more on how it can benefit our workflow.
Best regards,
Ken S.