A computer system may store a large amount of data. Some data may need to be available for online access by computer system users, while other data does not need to be available for online access. Data that does not need to be available for online access may be archived to offline media and removed from online storage.
Data stored on offline media may need to be restored for online access. Some data stored offline may not be suitable for restoration into online data structures that exist when the data is to be restored. For instance, if the online data structure changes after the data is archived, the archived data may not be able to be restored. This problem may be solved by storing the data structure in addition to the archived data. A conversion program may be developed and applied at the time of restoration to move the archived data into the changed online data structure. Often the level of effort required to develop a conversion program to restore archived data may be significant. As a result, information in offline storage may become less valuable over time due to the difficulty of restoring the archived data.