InfoArchive application retirement and license scope

InfoArchive is built for application retirement, holding the data of decommissioned systems in a compliant archive, and its license is organized around the volume of that archived data. A finding inflates when an audit measures scope as though archived volume were active usage, or counts retired application data the entitlement was always meant to cover.

The purpose of InfoArchive is to let an organization shut down a legacy application while keeping its records accessible for compliance and reference. That purpose shapes the license: the metric tends to follow archived volume, and the population that touches the archive is small, typically people retrieving records occasionally rather than a full active user base. The audit risk is that the volume measurement is taken at its largest, including data that is purely retained rather than actively processed, or that the scope is read to include systems and data outside what the entitlement covers. A defensible position ties the license scope to the application retirement purpose and to the volume the entitlement actually governs. Because the OpenText EULA makes compliance the responsibility of the licensee, the buyer must define that scope, and defining it precisely keeps the finding from charging for storage as if it were activity.

How application retirement defines license scope

When an application is retired into InfoArchive, its data is moved into the archive and the source system is decommissioned. The license scope is the archived volume under the entitlement, and the defensible reading holds the count to the volume genuinely in scope rather than every byte that has ever passed through. Data that is retained for compliance and rarely accessed is the normal state of an archive, and that retention is exactly what the product is licensed to do, so it should be measured against the volume entitlement and not reinterpreted as active consumption. The scope question is also a boundary question: archived data from a retired application belongs to InfoArchive, and it should not be counted again under the metric of the system it replaced.

The principle is that an archive is licensed to hold data, and holding data is not the same as a live application charge. The retirement purpose is the anchor for what the license covers and how the volume is read.

Where the InfoArchive scope overstates

Volume measured too broadly

The archived volume should reflect the data genuinely under the entitlement, not a maximal reading that sweeps in everything ever ingested. The volume metric detail sits in InfoArchive volume metrics and archived data exposure.

Double counting with retired systems

Data archived from a decommissioned application should not also be counted under that application's original license. The decommissioning argument is set out in decommissioned Documentum repositories still on the audit.

Access counted as active use

The small population that retrieves from an archive is not a full active user base, and read only retrieval does not meet a chargeable active definition, the boundary in Documentum read only users and the consumer definition.

How we defend an InfoArchive finding under the four Rs

Respond. OpenText gives seven days notice before an audit and the right to copy relevant records. We take over the channel and ensure the archive inventory, the volume measurement basis, and the retirement records are captured together, so scope can be defined against the entitlement rather than a raw volume reading.

Reconstruct. We build the effective license position by tying scope to the application retirement purpose, measuring archived volume against the entitlement, and separating retained data from anything that might be double counted against a retired source system.

Rebut. We challenge any line that reads storage as activity, measures volume too broadly, or counts retired data twice. The finding falls by the value of every measurement the entitlement does not support.

Resolve. We settle on the defined scope and, where it serves you, convert forward into an OpenPass agreement that records how archived volume is measured and what the retirement scope includes, so future reviews start from an agreed basis.

An anonymised outcome

The reason scope discipline matters is the remedy behind the finding. On noncompliance the licensee is deemed to have acquired licenses at then current list price, owes back maintenance and support, owes first year maintenance on the new licenses, and reimburses the cost OpenText incurs performing the audit. While our anonymised insurance engagement, case file E-01, centred on a Documentum seat count rather than an archive, the same discipline carried it from a $7.2M finding to a $1.6M settlement, a 78 percent reduction: hold every measurement to the entitlement that governs it, and remove what that entitlement does not cover.

Scope the archive to its purpose

The lasting lesson is that InfoArchive is licensed to retire applications and hold their data, and a finding that reads archived volume as live activity, or charges retired data twice, has lost sight of what the product does. A buyer who anchors the scope to the retirement purpose and the volume entitlement, and separates archived data from the systems it replaced, removes a layer of inflation that volume readings invite. To prepare that scope, read how to reconcile Documentum entitlements before an audit, and to place it in context, read our ECM and Documentum audit defense track and our complete OpenText audit defense playbook for 2026. If an InfoArchive volume reading is driving your finding, open a case.

Retirement as a defense, not just a use case

Application retirement is the reason InfoArchive exists, and it is also a defensive argument in its own right. When data has been moved into the archive precisely because the source application was shut down, that history is evidence: it establishes that the data is retained rather than actively processed, and that the retired system should not be carrying a parallel charge. Documenting the retirement, when each application was decommissioned and what moved into the archive, turns the product's purpose into a record the audit has to reckon with.

We capture that history alongside the volume measurement, so the scope argument rests on what the archive was built to do rather than on a maximal reading of stored bytes. The same separation of retained data from live systems underlies the argument in decommissioned Documentum repositories still on the audit.