ROT & File Clean-up

Identify, disposition, and defensibly delete Redundant, Obsolete and Trivial data from your enterprise data stores.

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A precise combination of intelligent software & expert services.

PowerHouse

AutoClassification Engine scans & analyzes content

BlackCat

Metadata Visualization displays content & metadata

Connectors

to source repositories process data in place

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Subject matter experts in IG strategies & best practices

ROT = Risk

ROT (Redundant, Obsolete, or Trivial) content typically comprises a significant percentage of an organization’s enterprise content volume. Industry estimates and Valora’s experience suggest that 20% to 50% of a company’s stored content falls into ROT categories, with some estimates going as high as 60% to 70% in cases where content management practices are weak.

ROT data consumes valuable storage space, drives up costs, and increases the risk of exposing sensitive information. With limited visibility into what data is outdated or unnecessary, organizations often end up holding vast amounts of ROT, creating compliance challenges, operational inefficiencies and avoidable risk.  

Identifying ROT

Identifying and removing ROT is a priority for most organizations. Not only does it free up repository real estate and storage, but it removes all content that serves no business value; reducing governance risk, compliance risk, litigation risk, excessive storage costs and the amount of time employees spend looking for relevant content. Even AI efforts benefit from properly curated, definitive provenance documents for analysis, free from ROT or poor-choice data.

Valora scans repositories to identify:

  • Redundant content:
    duplicative content, non-record copies, back-ups, abandoned shared sites, shadow data, etc.
  • Obsolete content:
    files that are past retention, former document versions, or poor choice files for specific use cases.
  • Trivial content:
    personal content, spam, out-of-office auto-replies, temp files, etc.

Beyond Identical Duplicates

It’s not just identical duplicates clogging up data stores. Categorizing duplicate types is a valuable factor in determining how these groups are treated or handled. Valora analyses content to identify three classes of duplicates:

  • Identical duplicates: identified via SHA-256 Hash code matching algorithm, and are a 100% forensically identical match;
  • Functional duplicates: 99% duplicates, similar/identical in every way except a Hash match, such as a Word file and a PDF of that file;
  • Near duplicates: 75-98% similar, based on text and metadata similarity, but expressly not identical. May be similar or related enough to warrant their treatment as a family unit. (ex: document revisions). The similarity percentages can be customized.

Benefits of using Valora for ROT & File Clean-up

Using Valora’s AutoClassification platform for ROT management not only reduces storage costs and improves data governance, but also enhances minimization, compliance, security, and operational efficiency by ensuring that only necessary and valuable data is retained. This leads to a cleaner, more secure, and more cost-effective data environment.

Enhanced Data Quality & Relevance

Reducing unnecessary data improves data quality, streamlines the data environment, and enables employees to locate accurate, up-to-date information more easily, ultimately supporting better decision-making and productivity. It also sets up data sources for strong, trustworthy AI readiness.

Cost Savings

Remediating ROT frees up valuable storage space, reducing monthly physical or cloud storage costs. By reducing ROT, organizations also ease the load on IT infrastructure, minimizing backup, maintenance, and scaling costs associated with managing unnecessary data.

Increased Productivity & Operational Efficiency

AutoClassification improves data categorization, taxonomy, and accessibility, allowing employees to retrieve information faster and streamline workflows. This lessens the need for manual data cleansing, saving time and reducing the demand for human resources in data management.

Improved Compliance & Risk Management

Valora enhances regulatory compliance by helping organizations meet requirements, such as those in GDPR, CCPA and other emerging data privacy regulations, to limit the storage of unnecessary or obsolete personal data. By identifying and removing ROT, clients reduce the amount of sensitive information retained, lowering both the risk and impact of data breaches and ensuring that only necessary data is kept for compliance purposes.

Efficient Data Governance & Lifecycle Management

Automating data classification and management based on its value and retention needs, helps organizations enforce governance policies more effectively. Identifying ROT can also simplify data lifecycle management, enabling automated deletion schedules for obsolete data while ensuring valuable data is properly retained for the appropriate amount of time.

Scalability & Adaptability

Identifying and reducing ROT enables scalable data management that maintains quality and relevance. AutoClassification helps organizations modify classification policies in response to evolving business needs or regulatory standards, ensuring that stored data always aligns with current requirements.

ROT & File Clean-up FAQ

How much storage space can I save by removing ROT?

In our experience, most organizations find that between 40-50% of their stored data is Redundant, Obsolete or Trivial (ROT) and can be defensibly removed. Depending on your stored data volume, this can easily represent millions of dollars of potential cost savings!

Can we customize what the system considers ROT?

Yes. Organizations can fully customize what the system identifies as ROT.

Clients may dictate their Trivial values based on any combination of metadata attributes, such as: File Extension (.tmp, .exe, .dll), Document Type (out of office email, receipt notice, etc.), File Path and Last Accessed Date (abandoned file share last accessed in 1998), and presence/lack of Key Words and phrases (Draft, Revision, Copy, etc.).

Redundant values can be customized to include/exclude identical duplicates (SHA-256 hash match), functional duplicates (Word saved to PDF), or near duplicates (similar or near versions of the same contents or metadata values).

Obsolete values are usually based on an organization’s retention policies or workflows, but can be customized as new content is discovered or changes to policies are required. 

Can we tell which files are ROT without a full-text analysis?

Yes, to a degree.  Without  full-text analysis, Valora  reduces ROT determinations to identical duplicates detection only, as identified by the SHA-256 Hash code matching algorithm. SHA-matches are 100% forensically identical duplicate files, the single biggest contributor to redundancy.

For complete ROT analysis, full-text processing is required to identify functional duplicates (where the content is 100% match, but the files are different, for example: saving a Word doc as a PDF), and near duplicates (where content is similar, but expressly not identical).

For a group of identical duplicates, can we determine which ones are ROT and which ones are not (and should be kept)?

Yes. Clients may dictate which identical duplicate(s) should be deemed the group master(s) or “team captain(s)” and therefore be retained. This determination can be by Source, Author, File Path, Custodian, or any other data element that PowerHouse creates.

How do I get my organization to actually agree to delete ROT?

We get it, actually deleting content is hard.  

Some people may resist deleting their data for a few reasons, including:

  • Perception of value: Believing that seemingly redundant or outdated information could be useful in the future, even if it hasn’t been accessed in years.
  • Lack of ownership: Not knowing who “owns” specific content, leading to hesitation in deleting it.
  • A “save everything” mindset: Some organizations have a hoarding culture where everything is kept “just in case.”
  • Regulatory concerns: Misunderstandings about legal or compliance obligations may lead to over-retention of records or sensitive data.
  • Fear of change: Natural resistance to change, even when it involves improving efficiency or meeting compliance obligations.
  • Uncertainty about outcomes: Concerns about how new content management practices might disrupt workflows.

Addressing these concerns often requires a mix of clear communication, effective tools, robust processes, and a cultural shift toward valuing clean, useful, and organized information. Valora can help.

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