Selecting a storage product to improve your organization's compliance is like putting the cart before the horse. Before you evaluate products, you need to understand the business requirements and objectives of managing your data; the types of data your compliance program must address; and the legal, regulatory and business requirements for storing, retrieving and deleting data.

Legal and regulatory compliance requirements are changing electronic data retention and storage rules. New and revised laws dictate how securely certain records must be stored, how long they must be kept and even how quickly they must be retrieved. Your company's in-house legal team or outside counsel will play an important role in crafting a storage compliance policy that will be defensible and workable.