ROT Data: How Can Businesses Manage Obsolete Information?

July 8, 2022

Redundant, obsolete, and trivial data (known as ROT data) can get in the way of any organization’s workflow and productivity. With the right tools, ROT can be significantly reduced and its impact mitigated.

What is ROT data?

Redundant data is duplicate data stored in multiple locations within the same network or across multiple systems. Intranet networks are a common source of redundant data.

Trivial data is any information that doesn’t need to be archived. This information doesn’t contribute to knowledge, insight about the business, or record-keeping.

Obsolete data is any data that is no longer useful, wrong, or incomplete. It might include outdated data or has been passed over for more current information.

Some common examples of ROT data might include:

  • Unnecessary duplicate emails
  • Information that wouldn’t be retained for regulatory or legal reasons
  • Outdated cookies
  • Inaccurate or obsolete web content
  • Documents, files, or other content that have been superseded by new, more current content

Why Is ROT an Issue for Businesses?

Why should your organization spend productive hours and resources ridding their digital spaces of ROT data? As you might guess, piles of ROT data can cause many different issues for business and business management.

Here are some examples of how ROT can create challenges and obstacles for your business:

  • Security Risks

    The more data you have stored on servers, hard drives, and elsewhere across your company, the harder it is to guard it against attack. Cleaning out your digital spaces helps you grasp how much data you have and allows you to focus your efforts on protecting that data from harm.

  • Diminished Productivity

    When employees have to sift through mountains of cluttered data to find the thing they’re looking for or spend time correcting clearly outdated information, they’re wasting productive hours.

  • Poor Decisions

    Piles of ROT make it more likely that a colleague will make a misinformed decision based on irrelevant information, leading to lesser outcomes for your business.

  • Increased Storage Costs

    As much as a third of data stored by organizations is redundant, trivial, or obsolete, according to Veritas Global back in 2016. Another 52 percent of data was considered “dark data” – data that a business gathers en masse but fails to properly utilize. Veritas says it will cost companies worldwide about $3.3 Trillion to manage all that data by 2020. Data management costs directly reflect the amount of stored data, so clearing out dark data is an obvious cost reduction step.

  • Legal Risks and Compliance Risks

    Sorting through ROT data gets in the way of promptly responding to legal action, which could impact your organization in several ways. Some regulations like GDPR and CCPA require tracking and disposal of certain personal consumer information (PII) and Privacy Policies that show how your organization collects, stores, and discloses that data. Excess ROT Data can make compliance harder to prove to these regulators.

Here are some ways to significantly decrease ROT data in your network:

  • 1 Work with stakeholders to establish a defined set of organizational tactics for each data set within the organization, so it’s easy for everyone to see exactly what data you have and which data is important.
  • 2 Create defined best practices for dealing with the ROT you generate. Regularly delete obsolete documents, records, and trivial information.
  • 3 Defining an SSOT - a Single Source Of Truth - can help the clutter of “versioning.” The final and correct documents, products, and media are the only copies saved in the SSOT directory.
Businessman using a computer to database and digital file storage

How Do We Stop the Spread of ROT in Our Organizations?

ROT management is a never-ending solution to an ever-growing problem and takes regular upkeep. Powerful file analysis tools like Netwrix Data Classification ensure accurate tagging, automate critical information management, and make reviewing and governing the whole process robust and straightforward.

These tools help identify ROT, reduce the risk of security issues, streamline regulatory tasks, make data easier to find, improve decision making, and reduce data storage costs. ROT is a problem for many organizations, but by following these steps, you can manage costs and increase productivity within your business or organization.

Why Choose Small Enterprise Technology?

Small Enterprise Technology was founded to provide its clients with a professional, first-class customer experience. Their goal is to be your technology partner, not just another IT helpdesk. Reach out to a customer representative with any further inquiries. To learn more about how Small Enterprise Technology can help your business stay protected from data leakages and loss, call or contact us today to get started!