Document archiving may sound like an archaic process, but it is an important and complex process. This is mainly due to the increasing amount of information that is available and also because data is being stored in more formats and on media that, as yet, no one can guarantee the reliability of over the longer term. Archiving may be achieved using either physical or digital media.

One of the biggest challenges of document archiving is deciding what information to archive, where to store the archived material and how often to archive information; the answers will be different from one company to another. Backing-up data is not the same as archiving; backing-up should be done whilst data is still in use and the back-up may later be overwritten. The idea behind backing up is to ensure that all the information required for the day-to-day running of the business is available. Archiving is carried out once data is no longer required for active use. Typically, at the end of a project, the data will be cleaned up and then stored securely.

Document archiving offers a number of benefits. It frees up valuable storage space and maximises the capacity of storage media. Compression can further optimise the use of storage media.

Companies can either carry out archiving in-house or a third party specialist can be employed. Today, companies need to archive a growing volume of electronic data and records, which may include files, email and SharePoint content. Electronic archive documenting services can combine archiving and file recovery with no impact on the production content systems.