Email archiving has been a professional focus of mine for a while now, and I’ve previously written and spoken about the “eleven essential elements“. So when TechTarget asked for an article for Storage magazine, I had a good well to draw on. The latest issue of Storage magazine includes this article, titled “10 Key Considerations for Email Archiving” and I’m well pleased with it. If you have a subscription, please do take a look. Otherwise, you can find the article online.
I’ve covered these considerations previously, but let’s just mention them again here. Each is covered in more detail in the article and in my webinar, but I welcome comments and questions here.
- How complete is the archive?
- Does it record what people do?
- Can the archive ingest an existing mail store or PST files?
- Can the archive handle multiple email systems?
- What about non-message content?
- What about deduplication?
- Will the legal department be happy?
- How does search work?
- Can the archive easily integrate with third-party tools?
- What will users think?
Also of interest are the four sidebar topics:
- Consider the implications of the archive on your records retention policy. How will you use the archive? Is it primarily for legal use or to help slim down the mail store? In many cases, you can implement the archive before setting a policy, but you have to go through this process eventually!
- Think about the implications of PST ingestion, especially where it impacts users and legal. I call this “PST indigestion”, since you can quickly dig yourself a hole by importing unreliable copies of data and removing user accessibility!
- Some companies need “supervision” capability. Although this isn’t a core requirement for many organizations, it can be make-or-break for financials!
- Consider the impact on user interaction, too. I know of many email archiving projects that have gone off course by developing an unwieldy and impractical system that users just can’t live with. Some archiving products will have trouble with mobile and web clients especially!
Again, if you’re interested in this topic, drop a comment below or send me an email. And if this is important to your business, might I suggest contacting my employer for a consultation?