Can mean anything, but your requirements determine what.

For example, some orgs have data retention requirements for legal reasons. For example, docs might need to be retained for 3 years and archived for another 4. In this kind of setup, you have to prevent deletions, capture upload dates, support archiving docs that have passed the 3 year mark and deletions for the 4 year mark after that.

Ultimately your requirements will tell you what you need to implement, you're not going to find the right answer here...