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Mail Archiving

Email archiving also allow for the creation of access restrictions to secure and protect intellectualproperty rights as well as ensure data integrity and confidentiality in compliance to thestatutes.

Email archiving solutions offers businesses tremendous capabilities — from optimizing theiremail environment to providing archive, search, and retrieval options for compliance and discoverymandates. Often the benefits these solutions provide go beyond the scope of an organization’sinitial requirements.

Why Archive Email?

There are four key reasons for an organization to archive its email. These are compliance, judicialdiscovery, storage management, and knowledge control.

Compliance

  • Electronic business records (including email communications) are now placed under thesame scrutiny as their paper-based counterparts. Failure to manage these records properlyand failure to reproduce certain email data upon request could be deemed an obstructionof justice.

  • Organizations are being required to archive email data systematically as a standard courseof business and, in some cases, on a inalterable storage medium to bolster the evidentiaryvalue of this data.
  • Organizations are being required to document their data management practices andrequirements related to email and to communicate this information to employees so that allstakeholders are on notice as to the liabilities associated with email messages.
  • Metadata or descriptive information about the email data itself is viewed as a key considerationwhen evaluating the evidentiary value of archived email messages. Although many regulations exist and each seems to have its own requirements, email archivingcompliance is based on three main concepts:

Archived data must be retained in its original state without being altered or deleted.

Archived information that is retained must be safeguarded against all security threats, which include access by unauthorized persons as well as anything that could physically damage or endanger the availability of the information.

Archived information should be easily accessible in a timely manner by authorized personnelwhenever required.

Email Archiving Planning Considerations

Based on the above, any email archiving solution should include the following features:

  • Emails should be archived automatically and with the minimal human interventionpossible.

  • Archived emails should be indexed, especially the text content, so that search facilitieswill enable the quick extraction of records to support regulatory audit requests and legaldiscovery.

  • The email archiving plan system must include configuration features through which thecompany can define its archiving criteria. These features should at least allow archiving ofspecific mailboxes and messages from specific domains or email addresses.

  • The email archiving system must be able to ensure that records are secure from loss, damage,or misuse. The solution must include access restriction features.

  • Journaling must be used for organizations that are using the email archive solution for governance(i.e., a system of record), since it ensures that each email is capturedand saved.

  • The solution should enable a company to use its email archive as a central knowledgerepository from where authorized users can extract information required. Depending onhow the system is configured, the retrieval can essentially be transparent to theend user.

  • The archiving system should support all major messaging platforms to ensure standardscompatibility.
 

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