E-Mail Archiving Essentials

The increasing incidence of electronic discovery requests during lawsuits as well as the requirements of legislation such as the Sarbanes Oxley Act means that any company with an e-mail server should consider the acquisition of an email archiving system.

There is a growing demand in organizations large and small for practical, efficient solutions that simplify archiving and retrieving e-mail from cumbersome programs like Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express. But where should a company begin the process of finding the best system for its needs?

Before a company purchases any form of message archiving system, Connected Corporation�s Strategist, Data Protection and Archiving Technologies, Steve Kenniston recommends that they get their company�s policies in order.

“First, the IT organization has to have conversations with all the lines of business to form the policies for message retention. Then they can investigate the different technologies to see which products support their policies.

�After that, you can add other requirements for things you’d like to see the archiving solution solve, like better storage management or policy management tools that help users avoid noncompliant activities.”

With policies established, the company can then begin comparing archiving systems and be in a much better position to make the best selection. The following is checklist of email archiving must-haves:

Automation – The system must automatically capture and archive all incoming or outgoing messages as unique, indexed records.

Security – Each message and any attachments that pass through the mail server should be compressed, encrypted and digitally signed.

Retention Policy Control – Each message should be classified according to whether or not it needs to be stored, where it should be stored, and for how long.

Lifecycle Management – Transparent to the user, messages should be migrated to the most economical and efficient storage media, based on the company�s retention policies.

Indexing and Search Capabilities – The archiving program should index the message header, the text and any attachments. It should also capture all the MAPI data that describes any actions taken with the message.

Access Control – A secure archiving system can restrict a message to authorized users.

Audit Trail – The archiving program should be able to audit every event that transpired in the life of the message. It should keep a log of each time the message was accessed, stored or deleted and any changes that were made.

Support Multiple Messaging Platforms – To ensure compatibility with standards going forward, the archiving system should support all key messaging platforms.

Reporting and Sampling Tools – Make sure the software can easily deliver the reports and audit samples that your organization requires.

Developing and implementing an email archiving system will be an expensive item for most businesses. Offsetting this is that it can actually reduce storage costs by allowing email records to be stored on the most appropriate combination of online, near-line and off-line media.

An intelligent email archiving system will also cut down on the number of records a company has to store by ensuring that only relevant messages are stored. Sophisticated techniques exist that grade how appropriate an email message is for archiving and direct only relevant emails to the best location for safekeeping and possible retrieval.

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Copyright 2005, RAN ONE Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from www.ranone.com.