Solution Spotlight: ROT & File Clean-Up

Studies show that 30-40% of all content stored by enterprises is considered ROT (Redundant, Obsolete, or Trivial data), or content with no legal, regulatory or business value. 

 

Defensibly managing & removing ROT is important because it:

1. Reduces storage costs by eliminating redundant content.
2. Reduces system back-up time and resources.
3. Increases employee productivity by optimizing content searches to only relevant content.
4. Eliminates the risk of unknown or duplicate content that may contain Personal Data (such as Personally Identifiable Information, or PII).
5. Provides legally defensible removal of content that has reached the end of its useful lifecycle.

AutoClassification automatically identifies, classifies and removes unnecessary files based on: relevant content (keywords) or lack of relevant content (spam), exact copies (duplicates) and versions (near duplicates) and by file type (temp files) and file size (0 byte files).

 

5 Steps to Managing ROT with AutoClassification:

 

1) Locate it. Scan all content from everywhere across the organization.
Scan and locate content from disparate data sources across the entire business: from emails and embedded attachments to shared drives, repositories, ECMs, and cloud storage environments.

 

2) Identify it. Determine the kind, type and context of all content.
Determine what’s ROT and what’s not — exact duplicates, near duplicates, temp files, junk mail, out-of-office emails. Machine-learning algorithms learn as it goes and will auto-identify content considered ROT.

 

3) Analyze it. Know where it is & what it is to make better business decisions.
Uncover your risk by knowing where your ROT is and what your ROT is. Real-time reports help organizations better understand the actual cost of storing unnecessary data to determine ways to cut storage costs.

 

4) Action it. Establish processes and workflows to manage ROT.
Automatically classify files by content, apply metadata and automate rules for defensibly handling ROT. Establish schedules that scan repositories and determine outcomes for ROT across the enterprise. 

 

5) Monitor it. Automate perpetual scans for ROT.
Catch it and act on it before it becomes unwieldy again. Constantly monitor and audit data environments for new and edited content and automatically apply appropriate rules and workflows to move, archive, sequester or delete ROT on an ongoing basis – with no system downtime.

 

CASE STUDIES

See how other enterprises used AutoClassification to locate and manage ROT:

• Addressing GDPR and CCPA with AutoClassification

• Constructing a "Virtual Vault" for Legal Contracts

• View all Case Studies

WEBINARS

View our on-demand webinars on ROT best practices:

• Managing ROT & Migration with AutoClassification

• What is AutoClassification & Why Should I Care?

• View all Webinars