U.S. companies are more likely than those in their U.K. counterparts to embrace new techniques for managing archived data over the long term, according to new statistics from the second annual BridgeHead Software Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) audit. Sixty-two percent of U.S. respondents rate preserving archived data for the long-term on multiple media types as important or very important, while only 41 percent of U.K. respondents feel the same way. Responses from both countries were nearly identical regarding data retention requirements, with 9 percent responding that some of their archive data will need to be retained in excess of 30 years, and a third of U.K. respondents and 37 percent in the U.S. stating in excess of ten years. Twenty-seven percent of U.K. respondents and 31 percent of U.S. respondents said the longest that any data in their organization needs to be retained is four years or less. "Despite the length of time, they know they need to keep data and also, despite the fact that well over half of respondents cite regulatory compliance as a driver for archiving, many respondents give the impression that they feel the job is done once data is simply migrated off primary storage. But this is clearly not the case,” said Tony Cotterill, CEO, BridgeHead Software, in a release. "Compliance is actually about being able to find data, not just migrating it. So, it's a concern that a question about archive searching was received with indifference by almost 40 percent of U.S. respondents.”