By: Jigar Astik, Associate Principal Architect, LTIMindtree

Introduction

Is your Dynamics 365 environment growing faster than your ability to manage its data efficiently? In today’s data-driven world, effective data management is no longer optional. In fact, it is critical to maintain system performance, ensure compliance, and control storage costs. As enterprise applications scale, so does the volume of data they generate, making it essential to adopt the right approach to archiving. This blog explores data archival solutions within Microsoft Dynamics 365, focusing on how organizations can leverage strategic archiving to optimize storage expenses and streamline data lifecycle optimization across Dynamics 365 (D365) projects.

Purpose of implementing archival in Dynamics 365

Implementing Dynamics 365 for large organizations requires a robust and efficient data archival approach. The goal is to align with data retention policies, leverage Microsoft Azure for cost optimization, and incorporate advanced security measures and access entitlement models. These features are critical for customizing data archival solutions to meet specific business needs effectively.

Understanding the business data lifecycle

A well-defined data lifecycle optimization strategy hinges on three core stages of business data:

Active data: This stage features data that is actively utilized within live applications and systems. It is readily accessible and available for use across all workflows and business processes, ensuring smooth operations and real-time, data-driven decision-making.

Inactive data: In this stage, data is retained for compliance, regulatory, and legal purposes. Although no longer actively used in day-to-day operations, it is preserved in a read-only format to facilitate audits, legal discoveries, and historical references. The management of inactive data is crucial to ensure adherence to industry regulations and organizational policies.

Purged data: The final stage involves the permanent deletion of data once it has completed its lifecycle. This ensures that obsolete and redundant information is removed from the system, optimizing storage resources and mitigating risks associated with data breaches or unauthorized access. Proper purging practices are essential to maintaining data hygiene and securing sensitive information.

Comparing archival options in Dynamics 365

There are two primary data archival solutions available in the Dynamics 365 environment, namely the Out-of-the-Box (OOB) seeded archival solution and the custom archival solution. Each of these solutions has its own set of advantages and disadvantages, making them suitable for different organizational needs and preferences.

Power platform Out-of-the-Box (OOB) seeded archival solution

This solution is provided by Microsoft and comes pre-packaged with Dynamics 365. It requires no additional customization by the user, which makes it extremely convenient for organizations seeking a straightforward implementation.

The OOB seeded archival solution is designed to be easily maintained by Microsoft, ensuring that it receives regular updates and support. It adheres to the dataverse security model, which means it benefits from comprehensive security protocols that protect sensitive information. Additionally, this solution boasts an average compression rate of 50%, effectively reducing the overall data size and optimizing storage usage. However, there are some limitations associated with the OOB seeded archival solution.

One major drawback is the restricted ability to retrieve data once it has been archived. This can pose challenges for organizations that need to access historical data for decision-making or compliance purposes. Moreover, despite running retention policies, this solution does not reduce the file capacity, which could lead to storage inefficiencies over time. Furthermore, the OOB seeded archival solution does not support the archival of audit history, limiting its effectiveness in maintaining comprehensive data records.

Custom archival solution

The custom archival solution, on the other hand, offers a high degree of flexibility and adaptability, making it a preferred choice for businesses with specific and complex data management needs. One of the primary benefits of this solution is the significant data savings it provides, allowing organizations to store large volumes of data more efficiently. Unlike the OOB solution, the custom archival solution does not impose any limitations on data retrieval, ensuring that all archived information can be accessed as needed without restrictions.

This solution is highly customizable, enabling businesses to tailor it to meet their unique requirements and integrate it seamlessly with their existing workflows. Additionally, it can be extended to include the archival of audit histories and attachments, providing a more comprehensive and robust archival strategy. This capability is particularly valuable for organizations that need to maintain detailed records for compliance and auditing purposes.

Nevertheless, the custom archival solution does come with some challenges. Its implementation often takes longer than off-the-shelf alternatives, typically requiring around 2–3 months to accommodate necessary customization and integration. Ongoing monitoring and maintenance are essential to ensure the solution functions correctly and continues to meet organizational needs. Besides, implementing a custom solution necessitates the development of a security model to safeguard the archived data effectively.

In summary, the Out-of-the-Box seeded archival solution offers ease of use and straightforward maintenance with decent compression rates. But it does have limitations in terms of data retrieval, file capacity reduction, and audit history archival. Conversely, the custom archival solution provides enhanced flexibility and significant data savings. It also supports the archival of audit histories and attachments, which adds to its value. However, this approach typically requires a longer implementation timeline. It also demands ongoing monitoring and the development of custom security measures to ensure proper functioning and protection of archived data.

Cost comparison

A comprehensive cost comparison shows that implementing data archival solutions, particularly custom ones, can reduce operational expenses for storing data and files by up to 80% over time. These savings result from improved efficiency and data lifecycle optimization, allowing organizations to tailor storage strategies to their specific needs and make better use of available resources.

Taking a strategic approach to data management

Managing the ever-growing volume of data within Microsoft Dynamics 365——requires a solution that balances cost, compliance, and accessibility. A custom archival solution offers several strategic advantages for organizations looking to streamline storage and improve performance.

– First, it enables full visibility and easy retrieval of archived records, helping teams maintain access to historical data without disruption. This is especially important for businesses that rely on archived data for reporting, insights, or compliance checks.

– Second, by aligning with defined data retention policies, custom solutions allow businesses to implement structured purging practices. This supports both regulatory compliance and overall data lifecycle optimization.

– Third, custom archival setups can be extended to include the storage of audit history and attachments—ensuring a comprehensive and secure Data Archival Solution.

Finally, organizations that have implemented such tailored solutions have seen storage-related operational costs drop by as much as 80% over time. These cost benefits stem from improved storage efficiency and reduced reliance on high-cost environments.

Organizations like LTIMindtree have experience helping enterprises deploy custom archival strategies that align with business-specific data usage patterns and security models. This makes them well-positioned to support long-term data governance initiatives within the Microsoft Dynamics 365 ecosystem.