The typical business email user sends and receives 600 emails in a single week. Those emails rapidly fill the Microsoft Exchange Server, which slows end users and drives bad behavior such as deleting emails, creating PSTs, and printing hard copies.
Email archiving must be able to do more than just store emails as files. A powerful archiving system is a management tool and meets the following minimum requirements:
Simple administrator tools enable the straightforward creation of different archiving procedures that can be started manually or automatically. Identical emails that are addressed to a group of users should only be archived once. A link of between 2 to 5 Kilobytes is all that remains in the MS Exchange Store.
Emails are transferred to different storage forms at some stage in the lifecycle. A deletion is prevented by retention time logic on the software side as well as by use of designated hardware before the lifetime expires.
The user can utilize the MS Outlook application as normal to open and edit archived emails. Full text search in attachments also helps raise efficiency and performance in the workplace.
Additionally there is a web-based portal for viewing archived messages and full Apple Mac OS support, including a client plug-in for Entourage.
Email is now recognized as an essential communication tool. Every employee is responsible for incoming and outgoing mails some of which may be highly sensitive.
Many react by limiting the storage capacity of mailboxes in order to avoid never ending upgrades with expensive storage systems. Employees must constantly delete emails to provide space for new messages as the mailboxes rapidly fill up to bursting point. Important mails are erased leaving nothing but a potentially hazardous void. Some users try to solve this problem themselves by storing old emails as PST data on the local hard disk. To have gigabytes of unstable PST data is not an unusual situation. Even the very best administrator has great difficulty when trying to open PST data that an employee has already archived with a password. Of course this situation is exacerbated if the user leaves the company without disclosing the password.
Retrieval of carelessly deleted emails is a laborious and time-consuming task.
Overstretched administrators are continuously challenged with the task of retrieving emails that have either been deleted too soon or simply by mistake. This unpleasant situation can normally only be dealt with by specialists who possess the appropriate skills and knowledge. A significant amount of time and effort is therefore required to pull the email out of the backup system and return it to its former home on the productive system.
Managing the MS-Exchange server puts demands on the IT personnel which in turn creates a state of inefficiency.
Nowadays text messages with often sizeable megabyte attachments are common. It is also becoming more and more popular to combine mail systems with internal workflow systems which leads to a massive build-up of data over time (as every tiny change ensures an inevitable backup and retrieval procedure). Administrators are also often pushed to find the time for the daily backup of the MS Exchange Store. The time lost in backing up all copies could be anything up to 24 hours and beyond. The fact that the vital email tool is not available during the restore procedure only succeeds in adding insult to an already potentially costly injury.
Storage can become a costly business when saving emails for documentation purposes.
According to a study made by Hitachi Data Systems in 2004 twenty percent of IT managers questioned said that email storage space accounts for almost 40% of the total storage capacity in their respective companies and this number is set to grow over the next few years. In light of these slightly alarming figures, those responsible for the systems are expected to organize the storage in a secure and efficient way. Emails, like all information, have a specific lifecycle: the effort required to track down old messages increases exponentially with time. Efficient storage of emails and attachments is recognized as one of the biggest challenges faced by IT departments today. Alternative storage technology such as optical data carriers and jukebox systems are designated to these tasks, especially when emails must remain unchanged to comply with certain laws and regulations.
It is becoming increasingly common for both national and international legislators to regulate the law concerning long-term storage of Audit secure emails.
In many countries the audit secure archiving of emails is compulsory for certain companies and organisations. The USA is a good example of recently tightened regulations where compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act or the Securities and Exchange Commission is mandatory. American companies must store all financially relevant emails for a legally regulated period of time. This law also applies to every European company that has either business relations with American firms or is financed from the USA. Similar rules to those mentioned above are also prevalent in Europe. Emails are studied in Consideration of Evidence and are often the only form evidence that can be presented to the court to make a decision upon. Even if a single email is not accepted as evidence a company can still be punished when an employee's incompetence is exposed.