Mr. Richard Fisher, senior consultant with Cohasset Associates, began the day by setting the stage for an understanding of the regulatory environment. Fisher discussed how WORM recording is ideal for storage of fixed content, as the legal requirements determine that content be accurate, reliable and trustworthy. He highlighted how AIT WORM media helps companies meet the regulatory requirements of integrity protection, accessibility, duplicate data recovery, migration and presence of an audit trail.

Mr. Patrick Gordon, principal consultant and founder of Compliant Systems Consulting, gave Forum members an overview of the securities industry and its perspective on archiving technology. A new opportunity has opened for WORM tape with a May 2003 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) clarification, which defined alternative technologies, such as WORM tape, as approved for different storage and retrieval applications.

Mr. Mark Bradley, Storage Architect at Computer Associates, discussed the current environment and future requirements for document management and content protection. With documents increasingly seen as assets, document retention activities have an important role in companies worldwide. Companies large and small will need to view documents as assets and manage them accordingly, develop storage quality of service processes, and integrate shared storage models into these complex environments.

Mr. Phil Storey, CEO of XenData, presented WORM applications, WORM market size, compelling WORM options and AIT WORM solutions. Fixed content applications such as document imaging, email archiving and scientific data gathering, are a natural fit for WORM technologies. These all involve digital data that changes relatively infrequently and typically has a long lifetime and high value. AIT WORM solutions have value in the fixed content data storage markets, and offer a much lower cost than optical libraries and high-end disk solutions.

Mr. Paul Donoghue, director of North American Channels at KVS, discussed how archiving software facilitates storage optimization, simplifies the management of and enables just-in-time discovery of content within business-critical collaborative systems. Archival solutions can address server storage growth, centralized information retention, and harnessing more cost-effective storage. With storage demands growing 100% to 300% annually, users will need to determine the right mix of document management and business intelligence to develop compliant solutions.

Mr. John Freeman, president of Strategic Marketing Decisions, presented an analyst view of WORM tape and optical disk technology. The industry must deal with the need for removable storage from the individual's mobile needs, all the way to the back office. Both optical and tape technologies are experiencing market scrutiny. WORM applications are experiencing higher capacity demands.

Current Meeting Notes