Email and database applications have emerged as mission-critical
business tools, but managing the spiraling volume of email and
database records has proven to be an enormous challenge for storage
administrators. The data generated by email and database systems
can quickly bloat a storage system, and that data is frequently
offloaded to an archival storage system where it can be retrieved
as needed. In actual practice, email and database archives share
many of the same concerns as more traditional
file archives -- the data should be
unchanging, readily searchable and managed with a strict
retention/deletion policy. However, email and database archives
are even more sensitive to search and retention issues than
other forms of data, and long-term archival storage demands
special considerations.
Litigation and e-discovery
support Email is often at the crux of litigation -- proving
or disproving allegations ranging from personal harassment to
corporate misconduct and more. The success or failure of a legal
action may hinge on the prompt retrieval of a key email or
thread in response to a discovery request. Consequently, it's
important to capture every new email (a process called
"journaling") and then apply comprehensive indexing so that each
message can be located later. For example, one email archive
tool indexes key words and properties (to, from, subject, date,
etc.) of an email and attachments. Search tools can then access
the index metadata and even perform deeper content searches
within each email message. Industry experts agree that
comprehensive indexing as the email is captured will streamline
searches later. Email retention and data retrieval is also
influenced by features like "litigation hold." For example, data
that may be subject to legal discovery can be placed into a
protected mode where it cannot be deleted even after its
retention period expires. This ensures that pertinent data will
remain available throughout the course of any legal proceeding.
Restoration, storage and security Email archives also
frequently fill a backup role in the enterprise, preserving
emails and database records against accidental deletion or
corruption. For example, a user may delete an email containing
important account information, but that message can be located
and restored from an archive -- often by the user themselves
without any direct interaction from the storage administrator.
Prior to commercial email archive tools, individual users
created their own .pst (personal store) files to archive emails
to their PC or corporate data center. However, .pst files can be
quite large -- Outlook 2003/2007 limits the size to 20 GB. In an
organization with many employees, .pst files can demand an
inordinate amount of storage space. Once an email system is put
into place, most storage administrators actively discourage user
.pst files in the enterprise. Eliminating .pst files saves
storage resources and makes it easier to enforce corporate-wide
email retention and deletion policies. Eliminating .pst files
also reduces the burden of email discovery since there would be
considerably less email data to examine. Many email platforms
include data reduction techniques to help conserve storage
space. The most common form of data reduction is often termed
"stubbing," where only one copy of an email attachment is
actually saved and all subsequent instances are simply denoted
with a pointer to the one actual copy. This is a form of data
deduplication. Since end users can frequently search and restore
their own email messages from the archive, security is also
critically important. Many email archive platforms allow users
to search their own messages. Supervisors can search for email
from groups. Similarly, a user or group can potentially access
to archived messages within a specified folder. Administrators
must use care when assigning retrieval rights and take steps to
ensure that messages cannot be altered or deleted by those
users.
The effect of change Another aspect of
email/database data retrieval is the continued readability of
the archival media. Anytime that underlying software or hardware
is changed, archive readability can be affected. For example,
email archives may be offloaded to a tape library. For example,
if the tape library is upgraded to a newer technology, older
archive tapes may no longer be readable. This might happen when
moving from DLT to LTO technology. Similarly, upgrading or
replacing the email/database archive software can also render
previous media unreadable. It's important for storage
administrators to consider changes on existing archives and have
a refresh plan available that will migrate existing archives to
the new platform.
One means of change mitigation is the use of an archive service
provider. This places the burden of archive management and
maintenance on a third party firm and allows your enterprise to
manage recurring costs by paying only for the level of service
used. You don't need to worry about recovery as its infrastructure
evolves. However, you will need to make a commitment to that
particular service provider and rely on its integrity and
availability into the future. Organizations with significant legal
exposures (e.g., banking) generally do not opt for third-party
services.
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