The National Archives of Australia's "Administrative Functions Disposal
Authority" entries on Technology and Telecommunication
(http://www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/disposal/authorities/GDA/AFDA/PDF/Techn
ology.pdf) permit the destruction of all Application Development
documentation for production systems "5 years after (sub)system is defunct
and any data supported is either migrated or destroyed" (entry 2086)

Part of the reasoning behind this was to make sure that the code etc which
'drove' the data would still be around so that the data could actually be
accessed data for as long as necessary.  Records of the migration are also
required to be kept for a period of time.

The other questions posed by the original poster (I'm catching up on a
backlog of mail, so I don't have quick access to the original request) may
also be answered by the disposal authority (albeit for another jurisdiction)

John Lovejoy
[log in to unmask]
I speak for me, not them (but I was involved in the production of this
particular part of the document)

-----Original Message-----
Date:    Fri, 13 Jan 2006 14:40:29 -0800
From:    Larry Medina <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Records Retention of IT / IS Records

On 1/13/06, Roach, Bill J. <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> >>Application Documentation - Records documenting the development of
> functionality and architecture of internal computer systems and
> applications.<<
>
> Here is a discussion topic:
>
> In today's environment, there may be merit for retaining Application
> Documentation, including maintenance and conversion records for the
> retention period of the information created by the application.  The
> reasoning behind the suggestion is the potential need to prove the
> "trustworthiness" of the information.
>
> Any thoughts?



My first thought is this is a GOOD THOUGHT.

More consideration needs to be given to this, especially in today's world o=
f
these applications being developed by "hired guns" or contract programmers.
In these cases, much of this information is a deliverable and part of a
contract requirement, and depending on the value of the contract, the
retention period could be anywhere from 3 to 6, all the way up to 25 years.
Even if they're developed by employees, if the employee leaves, the
documentation is all there is to explain to others what was done.
Another though on this is if the company is sold, merged or taken over, the
new owner will want to have access to this information in the event they
want to migrate the information to a system of their own.  And I think it's
important to separate "computer systems" and "applications"... typically on=
e
is hardware and the other is software.

Larry
--
Larry Medina
Danville, CA
RIM Professional since 1972

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