MCPc Blog

The Case for Email Archiving

 Email Article  

Tweet  

  

  

Not too long ago, the terms “backup” and “archiving” were often used interchangeably. More recently, I have noticed a trend toward using the term backup to refer to the primary data replica and the term archive used to reference a long-term, secondary data replica. 

Advances in technology have also brought about a paradigm shift in the target media employed for the task of copying company data: Hard disk drives have largely replaced linear tape as the primary media of choice because of their (substantially) better performance. The principal reason for this is the equation of available time compared to the amount of data that needs to be backed up or archived. It is significantly faster to search a random-accessed disk drive for data versus a linear tape that must wind and rewind in order to reach the required data.

Data continues to grow exponentially for a variety of reasons but we are unable to add more hours to the day as a means of accommodating the growth. Consequently, we are compelled to discover more efficient and faster methods of saving our data. It is the use of hard disks as target media that has made modern email archiving solutions a practical reality.

What is Email Archiving?

Email archiving does not replace conventional email backups, through which email servers are backed up so that they may be restored to a previous point in time in the event of a disaster.

Email archiving differs from backup in that the archive created is indexed and searchable. The email archiving software application allows an administrator to search the index of the archive based upon various criteria, such as:

• Date
• Subject
• Sender or receiver address
• Message size
• Attached files
• Forwarding status
• Combinations of the above.

Archived data is removed from the main data-store, thus the size of the main data-store is kept from growing uncontrollably.  The email archival application maintains pointers to the relocated data so that it is still accessible, though a bit slower than if it were still in the main data-store, but usually not to a noticeable degree.

Why is Email Archiving Needed?

There are two major reasons for businesses to consider email archiving: legal compliance and data-store management.

Legal Compliance

An administrator may be asked by an attorney to conduct a search of archived email messages - commonly referred to as e-Discovery - and produce a report of the findings.  The attorney would typically provide direction to the administrator as to the content of interest. The administrator would rely upon the email archiving application search function to discover the required content and to produce the report. Certain organizations (e.g, healthcare, financial and educational) are required by law to be in compliance should they ever be required to produce email information.

A few of the more often discussed laws/acts are: the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB) act of 1999, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). 

It is incumbent upon every organization to determine what their specific compliance requirements are and to take the appropriate required steps, or risk potential fines and other penalties. One need only search the web to find hundreds of stories of what can happen to companies that have been caught off guard.

Data-Store Management

The other major reason to consider an email archive solution is to gain control over the email data-store. Email archiving has become a necessity because end-users are not self-policing when it comes to managing the size of their own email message store. Email archive management software can use a variety of different methods to maintain control over data-store size, for example:

• End-users can be assigned quotas and receive automated warnings when size limits are approached.
• Large email attachments can be replaced with stub files that still allow functionality but relieve the main data-store of the burden of holding large file attachments.
• An administrator can set and impose a policy upon end users to effectively and automatically control the size of the email message data-stores.

In order to illustrate this point, let’s consider a “what-if?” scenario: Suppose there are two companies, each using the same email software. Company A has an email data-store over one terabyte in size and company B has an email data-store approximately 200 GB in size. If both email servers crashed and needed to be restored from bare metal, the difference in time to restore the server at company A versus company B would be significant.

Key Benefits of Email Archiving

For most organizations, email as a service has become a mission-critical application and that is why people are taking the time to ensure that their email servers are running as efficiently as possible. An email archiving application can assist in making certain that your email servers are running lean and mean by “cutting out the fat,” so to speak.

Your company may or may not need to be concerned with legal compliance issues, but everyone should strive to get control over the ever-growing size of their email message stores. Ultimately, the implementation of an email archive solution will help to conserve storage space, allow your email servers to run more efficiently and provide for the ability to search and find messages in an efficient manner.

How does your business manage its email?

Perry Szarka is a Solution Consultant at MCPc with expertise in data storage and network infrastructure. He works closely with clients to understand their business objectives and discover solutions to help them achieve their goals.

Image Credit:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3119/2313189596_a67b38baa6.jpg