Email Archiving
With more business being conducted over email, the need for email archiving is growing. Many businesses come up against one of more of the following issues:
- Mailboxes growing too large: putting pressure on the mail server(s), backup facilities and often the client PCs if they are synchronising the mailboxes locally.
- Email archives being kept by staff in the form of Outlook PST files, which may be held centrally or on individual PCs or laptoips, making them difficult to control.
- Email being accidentally deleted, with the staff realising too late for it to be restored from the backup cycle.
- Messages from departing staff need to be kept.
- Important business transactions or negotiations happen over email and there is a need to keep records of these emails such that they cannot be altered.
- Managers need to be able to monitor emails for compliance with company policy and legal requirements.
- Requirements to pass FSA / ISO standards for retention and operations.
In it's most basic form, email archiving is literally keeping a copy of all emails sent and received, including internally.
SCS has access to several archiving solutions, including those from Google Postini and Global Relay, both of which exist in the cloud in a highly protected form such that no user, including managers or SCS, can change the archive.
Global Relay's solution includes sophisicated tools for selecting emails for compliance review, and also reporting back that the review has taken place.
Archives are typically held for 7 or 10 years, although Google Postini does offer a 1 year solution.
Archiving solutions can be integrated into many systems, including on-site Microsoft Exchange servers and many hosted Exchange services.
