Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) is a comprehensive approach to managing enterprise data and associated metadata, from its creation and acquisition until it is outdated and deleted. An effective ILM strategy can help lower storage and data management costs, as well as reduce the security, compliance, and legal risks that come with failing to maintain complete control over organizational data.
In contrast to previous approaches to managing data warehousing, ILM deals with all aspects of data throughout its lifespan, rather than focusing only on one aspect of data management. For example, hierarchical storage management is only concerned with automating storage processes and not with how data is transformed or used. ILM addresses how data is used and many other issues. In addition, ILM enables more complex standards for storage management than systems that rely only on basic metrics, such as data age or access frequency.