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As large numbers of enterprises today are investigating email archiving solutions, it is critical to understand and evaluate these solutions. Before embarking on an email archiving solution there is a need to understand a range of business and technology issues. Understanding the reasons why your organization needs an email archiving solution and how to choose one that fits your needs will play a key role in choosing the right solution for your enterprise. Need for Archiving Regardless of the size of the industry, electronic search and electronic discovery have become prime considerations for every business. Electronic discovery is the retrieval of data to meet a legal request, regulatory compliance, human resource concern or any other corporate need. All organizations benefit from the search and discovery capabilities for email. It is therefore essential to provide a secure, searchable and centralized repository for email. And an archive can address the complete range of legal, regulatory, business and storage challenges presented by email. Email Archiving Solutions It is vital to examine the types of email archiving solutions as that will help in selecting a solution that will work best for your organization. Understanding the differences between the solutions is critical in determining the best solution. a) In-house Archiving Solutions An organization needs to define requirements and purchase the necessary software to deploy an in-house email archiving solution. The organization would also need a significant amount of storage hardware considering the large amount of email data that is usually sent. Typically, an in-house email archiving solution uses a dedicated, server based platform that copies all email from the message store into an archive. There are certain solutions that require software to be employed on all employees’ PCs to facilitate searching and retrieval. In-house solutions offer a high level of data security and control, along with convenient integration with other systems in the organization’s infrastructure. But when considering an in-house email archiving solution, organizations need to keep in mind the additional cost, as these solutions can be expensive to acquire and require skilled personnel to maintain. b) Hosted Archiving Solutions A hosted archiving solution is an alternative to the in-house approach. This solution allows a company to archive its data at a different location, thereby reducing the burden on internal IT resources. By outsourcing, the company can avoid the costs of buying the necessary hardware and software and do away with the inconvenience of maintaining an archiving system. However, the lack of data security is a serious concern in this approach. Storing confidential data at a third party location can lead to security breaches and privacy concerns, as in most hosted solutions the archived data is not encrypted. Another additional challenge can be the actual management of the archives as there is no direct integration with the organization’s email server. c) SAAS hybrid archiving solutions The other approach that is fast emerging is the SAAS (software-as-a-service) hybrid model. This solution involves an appliance installed at the customer site that is pooled with secure storage managed in the cloud by a third party provider. This approach combines the convenience of a hosted solution with the best security features of an in-house solution. In certain instances, before the data leaves the customer location, encryption is performed, ensuring that the archived content can not be accessed from outside the customer’s network. The hybrid solution is likely to become the popular approach as organizations come to understand the long term costs and maintenance required by email archiving. As the electronic data within a corporate environment continues to rise, it is imperative to archive, especially considering that email is fast becoming the electronic equivalent of DNA evidence. It is therefore crucial for any business to have a sound solution in place.
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regulatory compliance, email archiving solutions, email archiving,
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