While the reasons to employ an email archiving solution are many - the protection of vital business information for both internal use and compliance with eDiscovery rules foremost among them - not all companies have a plan in place. According to a recent report by the Minneapolis Star Tribune's Pat Powers, this is no longer an acceptable option. Companies armed with email archives have access to their files that helps in a number of critical ways.
The benefits
Powers stated that companies should know the difference between email backup and email archiving. While an email backup system is simply a frozen-in-time copy of everything in a company's email accounts, ready to be reinstated when necessary, an email archiving solution is a persistent and easily searchable collection of documents. All messages in the archive will always appear exactly as they did when sent, eliminating any ambiguity or confusion and making the messages ready for legal compliance purposes.
Legal need
As Powers pointed out, the main uses of email archives are legal, as regulations like FINRA and HIPAA can call on companies to save their documents. As eDiscovery rules develop and multiply, the need to keep documents becomes more pronounced. According to Powers, court proceedings can lead to document requests with short time frames. Producing documents for judicial review within 30 days could prove impossible for companies that do not have a strong archiving solution in place.
Powers cited a report by ITWorld that found many business owners oblivious to the need to retain email. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure apply to every company of all sizes, meaning that email archiving is necessary at all levels if firms hope to avoid incurring fines during the legal process.
Cloud option
A Radicati Group report with software industry support presented the cloud as a venue to purchase email archiving solutions. The report found that the volume of business email is set to rise. By 2014, the group estimated that companies will need to store 15 megabytes of email messages per user every day. These figures mean that scalable cloud archiving could be a sensible choice. Faced with the fact that their archives are likely to grow, CIOs can ensure a smooth transition to each new level of storage by investing in solutions that will expand without new installation procedures.
Email is a form of communication that exists purely in the digital realm. In that way, it is more like the technologies that have come after it - instant messages and social media communications - than the physical-first documents that came before. Email archiving solutions can function without using paper at all, storing large quantities of email data in its original form. According to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), however, outdated data storage methods are still prevalent in government, exposing information unnecessarily to the risk of loss.
Poor management practices
The National Archives' self-assessment of its performance through 2011 found several disturbing trends in the way federal agencies handle records. With the rise of digital documents as the primary method of new information creation, officials' unfamiliarity with electronic records management is especially glaring. One of the reasons for this lack of knowledge could be insufficient training. The survey found that nearly 25 percent of agencies did not train their senior managers in keeping records at all.
While heartened by the fact that some organizations have investigated cloud archiving, the overall picture that NARA found indicated that electronic records are still a cause of significant confusion for agencies. Another place where help is needed is compliance monitoring. Making sure that a system is up to the government's standards is critical. A few agencies, according to NARA, are ahead of the curve in that area, and can serve as a model for the slow adopters.
The survey found that 81 percent of government record-keepers print and file their email messages in a physical form rather than relying on a digital email archive. With the high volume of information created in a modern office environment, physical records filing seems outdated. It also disregards files' metadata and the chain nature of emails. Dedicated email archiving systems existed in 38 percent of respondent agencies.
The way forward
Keeping large amounts of email data could be a job for cloud archiving. Scalable and increasingly secure, the cloud presents a possible repository for near-unlimited public records. Public sector cloud expert Andrew Hawkins recently wrote for BusinessCloud9 that he sees the government becoming increasingly cloud friendly, a move that could help resolve the storage woes observed by NARA. Hawkins stated that while federal IT managers are usually very conservative in their decisions on new technology, an increased focus on agility has opened their eyes to the cloud. Since they require no on-site hardware, cloud solutions are fast and easy to install, meaning that managers in search of a fast and immediate solution for a storage problem can find an answer in the cloud.
How much government correspondence is available to the public and how should it be presented and preserved? These questions have become pressing in the age of email as the primary office communication tool. While some states have come under fire for not using email archiving enough, others are moving aggressively to make their data available for public consumption. According to the Miami Herald, the governor's office in Florida is taking the latter approach, making sure that the general public has easy access to the on-the-record email messages sent by Governor Rick Scott and 11 high-ranking members of his administration.
New program
According to the Herald, Scott's program is a new approach for the governor. The source noted that Scott waited to create a state email account of any kind, wary of having his electronic correspondence in the public record. The new initiative is called "Project Sunburst" and does not include text messages, Tweets or Facebook communication.
"We all know from day one that everyone is going to be asking for email. I don’t think it’s going to change anything really," said Steve MacNamara, the office's chief of staff, according to the source.
The Herald reported that MacNamara developed the project with the stated goal of saving citizens time on public records requests. There are limitations on the system, both time-based and regarding the amount of traffic that the program's server can handle. Even skeptics such as activist Barbara Petersen, however, concede that the program represents progress.
Past problems
The program, according to the news source, is meant to counter negative attention drawn to the governor's office when staff destroyed public record emails in 2010. The public was also crirtical of officials' decision to use personal rather than government email.
Florida is not the only state with transparency issues concerning email. According to local news source the Item, similar concerns have arisen in South Carolina, leaving watchdog groups concerned about the state's correspondence retention policy. The state has now begun a concerted effort to retain records that have historical value, with the governor's office and state archives working together.
Technologically powered
The retention of emails for the public record has become widely possible in recent years due to the rise of cloud-based email archiving systems. With cloud archiving, government offices can retain near-limitless information. As emails tend to grow in large, contextually-grouped chains, an affordable way to keep them for public records purposes could be a welcome addition to states' technological arsenals.
Saving data for eDiscovery compliance purposes is essential. The laws governing the field are in a constant state of evolution, but the movement is toward giving prosecutors more tools to search email archives. The rise of predictive coding as an eDiscovery tool means companies may soon have to save more data than ever, as it allows the rapid scanning of huge archives. While once, companies were limited in what they had to save by the impossibility of searching archives, those days may be at an end.
New judgment
In a recent case involving 2 million documents related to the collapse of airport hangars, Judge James Chamblin ordered the use of predictive coding, software to help lawyers find documents relevant to the case among the mass of information. The use of predictive coding in eDiscovery is controversial, as some, including the plaintiffs in the airport case, believe the technology has not been thoroughly tested.
The recurrence of predictive coding in legal matters means that companies may soon be required to engage in more email archiving. The amount of email businesses produce can be staggering, attributable to email's long life as an enterprise communication tool and the organization of messages into threads, which can lead to archive-increasing duplication of messages. If lawyers are granted the ability to search large numbers of documents, however, more files could be considered relevant to search for evidence.
Constant evolution
As an evolving field, eDiscovery is changing laws. Attorney Jill McIntyre spoke with the State Journal about the changes brought to the legal world by the increased use of eDiscovery. The attorney stated that metadata, data regarding a document's creation and use that is lost if the document is printed, is becoming important to the law. The need to know a document's metadata means saving it in its original format has become even more important.
"The presumption under the rules is that the opposing team is supposed to know [a file's] metadata - who created it and when and who modified it. If you print it, then you lose it," McIntyre told the source. "A lot of attorneys say 'I don't know how to do that' or 'I don't know what metadata is.' It's a whole new thing to learn. You have to learn how to collect it from the client."
The field of eDiscovery is in a constant state of growth and change, with laws and regulations changing to accommodate it. Companies can save themselves worry by being prepared.
Companies are no longer tied to offices for productivity. Working from home, working from the road or never going into an office at all are all valid options. Companies will do anything to become faster and more efficient, and increasing location flexibility is one prominent option. Why haven't companies been working this way all along? The advent of cloud technology has changed the paradigm. Now, vital functions such as email can be completely decentralized. Sending and receiving email and even accessing old documents stored with email archiving can now be accomplished from anywhere with internet access, and companies aren't looking back.
Cloud demand rises
Business security services expert Dries Morris has seen demand for cloud-based email features spike in recent years. He cited the desire for business continuity and stated that companies are eager for a wide variety of email capabilities. He stated that the systems must be usable from anywhere, on any device, due to the importance companies have placed on their email systems. He added that without the ability to send or receive email, employee productivity drops and work cannot be accomplished.
Morris also mentioned a second effect of the increasing faith placed in email - companies, treating it as the primary vector for communication, have a heavy need for email archiving solutions. The modern, cloud-based systems he has seen rise offer the benefit of increased access. Rather than one administrator recovering messages from specialized backup servers or from discs, the users want cloud archiving systems that make the data immediately available. When the rest of the business model has achieved extreme speed and convenience, internal searches must improve to match.
"Archiving electronic communication in terms of legislation and for backup is also a priority for today's companies, particularly since e-mail has become a default store of critical business information," he said.
New business model
The expectation of speed, efficiency and access is unsurprising when seen through the mirror of the cloud's rise. Cloud systems are no longer limited to a few systems well-suited for their unique properties. IT managers have found ways to make every type of vital business system available on a cloud model. A recent Forbes report focused on startup companies growing in Silicon Valley that have never operated any on-premise IT solutions. The benefits of the cloud have become less surprising and more widely expected each year since their popularity growth began.
Amazon recently opened AWS Marketplace, an online store that sells software and services. This new store is basically a one-stop-shop for any business customer. Although, the biggest benefit goes to current Amazon customers - if you're already a customer, you can simply add the software or service you'd like to buy to your AWS "shopping cart" and it will be added to your usual AWS bill. It's a simple online service - very similar to Amazon's own retail online store.
AWS Marketplace offers a variety of products and services, ranging from developing tools to architechture and database centers. Some of these software products come from popular vendors such as IBM, Microsoft and CA Technologies. With over hundreds of companies selling their products on AWS Marketplace, this online store has become an ideal service for customers looking for a new software.
Truly defining its "1-Click deployment," a customer can search through a variety of products, find and purchase a solution very quickly. For instance, if someone is intersted in archiving, Sonian's cloud-powered archiving solution will be displayed in the search results. On the Sonian page, you will find an overview of the product, reviews from current users and a reference number to call for a more detailed description of Sonian's solution.
As the technology market continues to grow, more services and software solutions are being added into the mix. Now, with AWS Marketplace, you can easily find a solution catered to your business needs. Try it for yourself and visit the AWS Marketplace.
Earth Day is approaching, making April an excellent time for companies to examine their business practices, ensuring they are using resources in the most efficient and responsible manner possible. One thing that business can conserve is paper. For years, the secure way to store documents was on physical, printed archives. With the wide variety of email archiving options available to companies, however, the need for paper records is rapidly diminishing.
The rationale behind paper archives is rapidly disappearing. While at one time, keeping a paper trail was vital for legal purposes, the codifying of eDiscovery law has made digital space an acceptable place to store information. Even companies eager to keep multiple copies of data no longer need physical repositories. A recommended tandem of systems, cited in TV Technology as a way to store even huge amounts of information, is a tape backup for long-term data savings and a cloud archive to provide instant access to the information.
Archives go digital
The pressure to move records from print to digital has a strong appeal across all fields. Even historians, proud of their comprehensive stores of data, have decided that files would be better kept in digital form. Rather than printing email messages on paper, archivists are now moving in the opposite direction. The Watertown Daily Times reported on one effort in New York to move 200 years of local documents into online storage. The physical documents have started to deteriorate, highlighting the comparative safety of the cloud.
"Some of the paper is so brittle, if you were to touch it five years from now, it might disintegrate," town clerk Charlotte Richmond told the Times.
The case to end paper
Companies still in possession of large stores of physical documents will have to ask themselves hard questions in the coming months and years. Do the records still accomplish a purpose in their physical form? Is there any reason not to adopt a cloud archive? With scalable storage, cloud archives will never run out of space, and with the cloud pricing model based on real-time usage, there is no need to pay for space until it is needed. Floor space devoted to filing cabinets or, for that matter, to on-site storage servers, is now free once again.
Companies invest in systems such as cloud-based email archiving for two reasons. The first is to gain access to capabilities that were impossible with on-premise solutions. The second is to save money over old deployment strategies. There are many ways, however, to accomplish the latter objective, and some may surprise business owners. For example, data center power usage can be a serious problem for companies trying to trim utility bills. A recent study conducted by CDW indicates that cloud-based systems help in this regard, boosting companies' efficiency.
"While cloud computing is a market basket of discrete technologies and services," CDW system solutions vice president Norm Lillis said, "it is entirely about IT efficiency, and as a strategy, it can deliver significant energy savings that will complement other solutions within the data center."
The survey indicated that companies are growing more enthusiastic about making green power a part of their data center strategy, with 43 percent of respondents stating that green, power-saving strategies are a top motivator in data center consolidation. With cloud services accessible entirely through an internet connection, the need for power-draining, on-site systems is eliminated. Growing confidence in cloud security means that more individual systems can be shifted. One of the cloud's defining features is its ability to provide individual functions or a complete infrastructure, meaning companies can begin their transition piece by piece.
When deciding on a first system to place into the cloud, companies can almost always add email archiving to the discussion. Email archiving is strong choice for companies, as the requirement to keep documents is ever-increasing. In business, the risk of eDiscovery requests in litigation means longer and more comprehensive records must be kept. In government, email is part of the public record, meaning that it must be kept on hand for public records requests. Widely used and in need of ever-increasing storage, email archiving can be a company's entry point to the cloud, or a helpful addition to an already stocked portfolio.
A recent Info-Tech Research group indicated that companies take archiving seriously. As they plan to keep more files than ever, firms are interested in the cloud. The research firm's lead analyst, Tim Hickernell, stated that companies are making the move based on a hesitancy to purge items. With email as a technology enjoying a long reign in the office space, the archives have become significant in size, warranting an off-site, highly efficient cloud solution.
The data from a recent Info-Tech Research Group survey of the market shows that email archiving is moving to the cloud. Many factors contributed to this move, among them the requirement to save more data, the ability to save things other than email with cloud archiving and the cost that can be saved by placing a large archive in the cloud. The state of the market demonstrates evolution, development and maturity.
One of the consequences of email's status as a long-serving office tool is that email archives have had a long time to fill with messages. The Info-Tech survey found that companies now deal with quantities of mail that cannot be handled easily or affordably on their own servers. This can be solved, in small part, through the deletion of messages. However, deletion is increasingly regulated by the need to keep documents in case of litigation. These conflicting forces have driven companies in search of a solution that will store more data. That means the cloud is the vector of choice.
"Email archiving has been around long enough that many organizations are working with very large archives, but are loath to implement rules for purging older emails," said Info-Tech lead research analyst Tim Hickernell. "This is opening opportunities for cheaper, cloud-based archives."
One other factor contributing to the rise of cloud archiving is the storage of text data other than email. The Info-Builders study found that companies are increasingly using methods other than traditional email to collaborate. Employees communicating through social networks and instant messages are still speaking on the record, and their transcripts could be needed in the course of an ediscovery investigation. That means companies need cloud storage space, as the variety and amount of data they hope to save increase.
Tech predictions going forward indicate that both email and social network communication are on the rise, ensuring future need for strong and scalable archiving solutions. A recent Radicati Group survey, while predicting the rise of social media, with worldwide accounts at popular networks reaching 4.3 billion in 2016, it also stated that email will continue to grow. The same study found that the current estimated 3.3 billion individual email accounts in the world today will grow by 1 billion by the end of 2016. All of those accounts will fill the next generation of archiving solutions. Thanks to the cloud's ease of upgrades and scalability, companies will not need to interrupt service to handle the new data.
When young people contact one another today, they use fast methods enabled by new apps and social media. As one recent Washington Post editorial opined, those under 25 seem to be checking email less, suggesting that it could be obsolete in young people's eyes. However, email remains popular for business uses. There are strong indications that the use of email in the enterprise space will continue for years to come, meaning that companies cannot neglect to adopt strong email archiving solutions.
Email is still a tool that serves companies' needs. As a tool for communication, recent email systems have become highly efficient, adding new features in the way messages are viewed and sorted to keep products relevant. The improvement of threading in email systems makes the systems easy to understand, and companies, generally do not see the need to replace email in the company infrastructure with newer solutions.
A recent survey conducted by German research firm Eleven found that, when asked how they would be communicating in three years' time, 83 percent of respondents chose email. Other options such as instant messaging and social networks received single digit percentage support and the employees interviewed were confident in their choice. Just over 2 percent stated that they did not know how they would be communicating in three years.
Companies accepting that they will still be sending email in three years need to plan ahead, to make sure that they have an email archiving that can grow with the increase in total volume and still be accessible, no matter what systems they use in the future. This is where cloud archiving enters the picture. Cloud space is scalable, meaning that as companies require more space to place their ballooning email threads, they may purchase more without changing their infrastructure or on-site hardware. Logging into an email archive hosted in the cloud is simple on office-based workstations, mobile devices, laptops, or the next generation of computers.
Companies adopting the cloud to store email, as of a 2010 Osterman Research Survey, reported themselves satisfied with the investment. The research firm's principal, Michael Osterman stated that large companies were taking on cloud archiving solutions, even though software as a service deployments are commonly thought of as small to medium business solutions.