“The 3-2-1 Archiving Best Practice provides a very pragmatic approach to safeguard and retain electronic information assets in an intelligent and cost-effective way.  Archiving 3 copies of all critical data provides a good balance between redundancy and resource provisioning.  The use of 2 different media types protects against technology failure, and with 1 copy offsite on removable media it enables a robust and economical archive strategy.”  Jon Toigo, CEO of Toigo Partners International LLC
 
 
 One of the biggest challenges for a hospital or clinic is to protect digital images without adding greater burdens to an already over stretched staff and budgets. In fact, most departments today are being asked to do more with less. Budgets are being cut while demands for ever more sophisticated PACS requirements continue unabated. These new economic realities are forcing a major rethink as medical professionals search for ways to increase efficiencies through the optimization of their existing resources.
 In these trying times, it’s prudent to go back to basics and review the foundation of a sound archive strategy. This is exactly what the 3-2-1 Best Practice approach is all about. Endorsed by leading storage industry analysts, 3-2-1 provides a very a simple, yet reliable approach to securing images, studies and reports for the long term though the efficient optimization storage resources.

In short, the 3-2-1 Archiving and Data Protection Best Practice advocates that a minimum of 3 copies of PACS images be retained, these copies should be kept on 2 different types of storage media, and at least one copy should be offsite on removable media.

This simple Best Practice approach provides a very solid foundation for a robust archive architecture without demanding proprietary hardware or infrastructure. When properly deployed, 3-2-1 makes very effective use of PACS resources, reducing the excessive level of hardware over provisioning that exists within many environments. 3-2-1 also delivers a level of structural redundancy that completely eliminates the need for archive backup.
 

 

In difficult economic times, financial objectives must be met without compromising business requirements. An archive based on 3-2-1 enables medical facilities to make effective use of their hardware infrastructure, reducing the need for capital acquisition and lowering power consumption. The intrinsic redundancy of 3-2-1 slashes the administrative and resource burden of backup, saving time and money. All this can be achieved while meeting essential business requirements for long term image availability, and creating a framework for regulatory compliance.

3-2-1 Archive Benefits
• Reduce the demand for storage hardware acquisition
• Optimize the use of existing storage resources
• Eliminate backup overhead for archive images
• Lower power consumption costs and carbon footprint
• Deliver robust availability for patient images
• Create a foundation for regulatory compliance