When migrating, people have been able to be selective on what kind of data they prefer to move. Meaning that the company or organization moves only what they need to in order to meet their business or legal needs.However, in the past there has been a trend that a company or organization moves all of their data into a new system. So why is it important to migrate all of your data?

Reason 1: People do not want to be responsible for deletion

Most email archive applications offer lifecycle management. However, people are hesitant to press the ‘delete button’ when emails go past their retention date. Sometimes the legal department is not involved in the process and therefore does not give support when deleting data. Also, the IT department could have implemented retention periods but when it comes down to pressing that ‘final delete button’ a red flag goes up and the hesitation keeps from deleting what could be gone.

So the theory of not migrating all of your companies’ data or archiving (the thinking of in one way or another, you will be deleting what you don’t need prior to the move) will probably not be worth it.

Reason 2: Extracting your data before migrating based on anything other than headline meta-data is a long process and not to mention you would be taking a chance

Deciding what is important and what is not important prior to migrating is a job that most people do not want to take on or defend sometime in the future. It is not impossible to look at email content and decide its value to the company but unless you have some kind of detailed list of you can use to filter your data, you are entering a grey area. Also, choosing some kind of criteria could be a waste of time and very expensive.

Reason 3: If you are being selective of data, make sure you know how to maintain the data you are leaving behind

If you choose to leave out some data, you better have plan for it in the future. Forgetting about the data you left out after a migration is a huge mistake.

If choosing to delete the data, be careful how you decide to do this.

Reason 4: It is virtually impossible to delete data

Some companies think they may have deleted records but copies do exist somewhere else. For instance, some companies decide to archive their data onto tapes. There could be a gap where some deleted data is recoverable or there can be a copy that has been over looked.

Final Tips:

• Make sure you maintain chain-of-custody and an audit. This is important if you choose to migrate to the cloud.
• Be aware that if you choose to only select certain data when migrating, what you decide to exclude can be left behind to be discovered. Do not assume that it cannot be found.