Storage Expo, a major data storage trade show, kicks off at London's Olympia tomorrow, and its main theme will probably be the need to process and store the ever increasing amounts of data created in our businesses.

Research suggests data volumes are probably doubling every two years. From my knowledge of the legal industry, which has an almost obsessive need to keep records of everything, I know that only now are we starting to see mature IT products to assist in information lifecycle management.

Unfortunately the average user cares little about the issues of data storage, which is one reason why documents multiply so quickly. Do we really need to copy emails to everyone in the department, with each email including every previous exchange, or could we just exercise a bit of discipline by deleting the now irrelevant parts? Some of the solutions really are that simple, which is why it is so frustrating when our users won't do their bit.

The plummeting costs of hard disk storage coupled with increasing storage capacities means that anyone can build a multi-terabyte storage facility at a relatively modest cost. The temptation for many will be to go for the quick fix without considering the long-term data storage needs of the business, taking into account business, regulatory and legal requirements.

At some stage every business is going to have to implement a proper data retention policy tailored to its specific requirements. Every IT manager needs to consider how their systems will support searches to comply with legal requirements - including data subject access requests under the Data Protection Act, and to meet discovery obligations in legal proceedings. These requests do happen and the courts are not terribly sympathetic if it costs your business a great deal because you have not implemented a proper data retention policy.

The best answer to this growing problem is a combined response, bringing together the IT department, for a technical solution; human resources, to deal with the employment issues; business leaders, to specify and agree exactly what is needed; and legal advisers, to ensure that the policy is sufficient and will stand up to future scrutiny.

So far I have only dealt with the "external" issues, such as compliance with the law, but data retention is also about the day-to-day use of data. Key data must be readily accessible, and by that I don't mean on a fast fileserver. Data must be capable of being found with the minimum amount of wasted time. This issue involves hidden costs and therefore senior managers are often reluctant to tackle it, but for IT departments under pressure to produce results, shared ownership of the problem might be in order.

After all, it isn't usually the IT staff who create most of the data in the first place.

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