Any CIO will tell you that data preservation is one of the organization’s highest priorities. Data that is corrupted, physically destroyed, or compromised in some other way can bring a company’s operations to a halt.

A business can suffer legal consequences, too, for failing to preserve data. Most countries have regulations that require certain types of data to be retained, sometimes for decades, even if it is no longer in active use, or is tied to a system that was retired long ago.