[Info-vax] RMS internals?

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Howard S Shubs wrote:
> In article <_7idnTheDPJv7hzXnZ2dnUVZ_gGdnZ2d at giganews.com>,
>  "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88 at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
>> We decided that anyone who hadn't bought anything for the last three 
>> years was no longer a customer.  Pruning these inactive customers 
>> reduced the database to a size we could move during a three day weekend.
>> We kept an offline backup of the former customers that were pruned from 
>> the live data base.  We kept those backup tapes for about three years 
>> and nobody *ever* asked asked for any of that old data.
> 
> As usual, it's a situation dependent question.  Some apps are required 
> to keep data for 7, 10, 25, 35, or 50 years, if not longer.  I've 
> encountered one requiring 40 years of archiving, IIRC, at a nuclear 
> power plant.
> 

I hope that 50 year app doesn't generate a lot of data!