Data Archiving
AI-Driven Data Archiving for the Enterprise
Most enterprise storage environments hold far more inactive data than IT teams realize. Those old files consume the same primary storage capacity as the active content your teams use every day. Without an intelligent and systematic way to identify, move, and govern that cold data, storage budgets continue to expand without justification. Compliance teams have no auditable retention record. Aging sensitive data sitting in accessible file shares creates a larger attack surface.
AN AI-GUIDED APPROACH TO DATA LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT
CTERA brings AI-driven intelligence to data archiving, providing an end-to-end approach that identifies which data should be archived, governs how it moves, how long it is kept, who can access it, and maintains a complete audit trail throughout. This is all possible inside the CTERA Intelligent Data Platform.
Common Challenges:
Common Challenges:
97.5%
of files have not been modified in the last year.*
9.9%
of data is typically accessed in the last 90 days.*
Primary storage retains files created years ago, including project archives, old case records, datasets, and other cold data.
Without a governed data archive workflow, there is no enforceable retention policy or audit trail.
Inactive data expands the ransomware attack surface.
Identifying which files should be archived can be a manual, time-intensive process. These ad-hoc systems can’t scale as data volumes grow.
WHAT AN EFFECTIVE DATA LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT SOLUTION SHOULD DELIVER
Data lifecycle management is more complex than simply moving or archiving assumed cold data into a different location. An effective archive solution identifies inactive data systematically, moves it through a governed, documented workflow, enforces retention policies, and maintains an auditable chain of custody that can be produced on demand. Intelligent solutions go further. These tools use AI to surface archive candidates automatically — by age, file type, size, and usage patterns — removing the guesswork and manual effort from the identification step. For organizations with regulatory obligations, WORM immutability proves that content remained unaltered throughout its required retention period.
BENEFITS OF ARCHIVING DATA WITH CTERA
Reduce primary storage costs with a clear data lifecycle policy
CTERA Archive – a feature of the CTERA Intelligent Data Platform – moves cold, inactive data to lower-cost cloud tiers or on-premises object storage. CTERA Archive works with affordable online object storage, including Amazon S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval and other S3 storage classes, and Azure Blob Cool and Cold Tiers. Organizations with significant cold data estates can reduce both their infrastructure and licensing spend and their storage footprint over time with governed lifecycle policies for deletion.
CTERA Archive – a feature of the CTERA Intelligent Data Platform – moves cold, inactive data to lower-cost cloud tiers or on-premises object storage. CTERA Archive works with affordable online object storage, including Amazon S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval and other S3 storage classes, and Azure Blob Cool and Cold Tiers. Organizations with significant cold data estates can reduce both their infrastructure and licensing spend and their storage footprint over time with governed lifecycle policies for deletion.
Simplify data lifecycle management with CTERA InsightAI
The combination of CTERA InsightAI and CTERA Archive provides an intelligent, end-to-end data lifecycle management solution. CTERA InsightAI surfaces cold data by age, file type, size, and usage pattern, while CTERA Archive executes the movement.
The combination of CTERA InsightAI and CTERA Archive provides an intelligent, end-to-end data lifecycle management solution. CTERA InsightAI surfaces cold data by age, file type, size, and usage pattern, while CTERA Archive executes the movement.
Enforce retention policies and maintain a complete audit trail
CTERA Archive logs every archive and restore operation with operator identity, source, destination, reason, file count, size, and timestamp. Logs are exportable for compliance reporting and legal discovery. Organizations can choose between two configurable retention modes, providing administrative flexibility and strict compliance enforcement.
CTERA Archive logs every archive and restore operation with operator identity, source, destination, reason, file count, size, and timestamp. Logs are exportable for compliance reporting and legal discovery. Organizations can choose between two configurable retention modes, providing administrative flexibility and strict compliance enforcement.
Decrease the ransomware attack surface
Archiving removes data from standard SMB and NFS access, shrinking your attack surface. CTERA Vault adds WORM protection, blocking unauthorized encryption, modification, or deletion.
Archiving removes data from standard SMB and NFS access, shrinking your attack surface. CTERA Vault adds WORM protection, blocking unauthorized encryption, modification, or deletion.
WHERE ARCHIVING INITIATIVES OFTEN BEGIN
- Enterprises with large data footprints that need to manage cold datasets that require governed access to archived data
- A compliance audit, legal discovery request, or records management initiative that exposes the absence of a governed, documented retention workflow
- Routine security assessment that identifies inactive data still accessible via file share protocols as unnecessary risk
- IT teams replacing manual archiving processes with a scalable, policy-driven lifecycle management capability
Resources
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*The Cold Data Storage Report, CTERA, September 2026
Get Started
Assess your data estate to understand where there are opportunities for cost savings and risk reduction with archiving. CTERA offers a free data assessment with our discovery tool, providing guidance on architectural and business decisions.