Email Archiving Top 10 Myths & Challenges

White Paper: Email Management

Email Archiving Top 10 Myths & Challenges

Contents Email Archiving: Benefits and Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Companies Need Archiving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Archiving Challenges and Solutions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Cloud Archiving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 More Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Email Archiving Top 10 Myths & Challenges

Email Archiving: Benefits and Challenges

In 1971, Ray Tomlinson sent the first email that would be recognizable to us today. It used the familiar @ sign to address a specific user at a specific domain.1 Just as the first wheel led to the first traffic jam, so the first email created the need for email archiving. Even today, most organizations use their email servers as an ad-hoc archive but this approach is no longer a viable long term solution. One reason is that there are simply more emails now than ever before. Today there are 1.4 billion email users worldwide and this is set to increase to almost 1.9 billion by 2013. Nearly a quarter (24 percent) belong to corporate users. Worldwide email traffic totals 247 billion messages per day.2 Another reason is that email has become an indispensable business tool. Business users spend about a fifth of their time (19 percent or one hour and 17 minutes per day) sending and receiving emails. They deal with an average of 108 business email messages a day.3 Because email is so central to business, a large proportion of a companys institutional memory lives in its email archive. Storing, managing and searching that archive is now a core business requirement. The cost of failure is high: losing arguments, losing law suits, losing jobs. Email servers alone cannot cope with long-term storage of very large volumes of email and attachments. Companies need a more robust, flexible and powerful approach.

Companies Need Archiving

We surveyed 111 email managers to find out their views about archiving. In some areas, the results were not surprising. For example, nearly two-thirds (65 percent) thought that archiving was important and only three percent thought it was unimportant or irrelevant. Ask a shoe maker whether leather is a good material and youll get a similar response. In other areas, the results were somewhat unexpected. For example, we thought that regulatory compliance would be a major motivator for people to use an archiving solution but just a third (29 percent) of respondents agreed. Some of the results were astonishing. Despite agreeing that archiving was important, only a few companies (27 percent) had actually deployed a dedicated archiving solution. Leaving email on servers and backing up those servers was, by far, the most popular approach. Email managers want to come to the archiving party but nobody wants to stay and clear up afterwards. Archiving method currently in use None Store email on the server Regular back-ups In-house archiving Cloud- or internet-based archiving Other
1-First email: http://openmap.bbn.com/~tomlinso/ray/firstemailframe.html 2-Email traffic: http://www.radicati.com/?p=3237

Percentage of respondents 15% 8% 42% 21% 6% 7%

Email Archiving Top 10 Myths & Challenges

We asked email managers if they had ever had to search for old emails and why. The main reasons were access to business information, HR requirements and recovering deleted emails. Reasons for email search For compliance purposes As part of an internal HR investigation For legal discovery To locate business records / contacts Recover deleted emails Other Percentage of respondents 29% 40% 19% 59% 49% 10%

Archiving Challenges and Solutions

On the one hand, email managers think archiving is important and regularly need it. On the other hand, relatively few have deployed an effective archiving solution in their business. Why is this? Perhaps some companies dont understand the benefits of a proper archiving system (as opposed to simply storing email on an Exchange server with quota restrictions to control storage growth). The benefits include: A consistent email archive for legal, HR, regulatory or business reasons A tamper-proof data trail for email for legal discovery or litigation hold Less pressure on email quotas and storage from proliferating attachments Less risk and hassle when users create local PST files to store emails and circumvent quota policies Mail servers like Microsoft Exchange impose significant restrictions which makes them less than ideal for archiving. This is especially true of older versions. Limitations include: mailbox and overall mail store size, the performance demands of dealing with actually delivering mail (as opposed to indexing and searching it), limited audit trail, sub-optimal search performance etc. Our survey revealed a number of challenges and myths around email archiving that may also slow adoption of full archiving. The Symantec MessageLabs Email Archiving.cloud Service addresses these issues.

Email Archiving Top 10 Myths & Challenges

Archiving challenge

Business risks and requirements

Solving the challenges with Symantec.cloud

Quotas. Dealing with mailbox quotas and the rising volumes of emails/ attachments was an issue for 56 percent of respondents.

Mail servers let IT managers set quotas on how much email each user can store. While this is necessary to keep storage and backup manageable, it is a source of frustration for users. Attachments are getting bigger every year and the problem multiplies when users forward them to one another, creating duplicates.

An important benefit of the Symantec.cloud service is its ability to archive old emails and de-duplicate attachments so that users dont have to deal with quota limitations and companies dont have to buy more and more storage to keep old messages.

Local PST files. When users try to bypass quota limits by storing emails on local PST files, this causes problems for 42 percent of respondents.

Local email archives create a number of problems for businesses. They are not accessible to anyone except the user who creates them. They are difficult to backup and they create security risks if stored on laptops which may be lost or stolen.

A central archive means that users dont need to create their own PST files. For example, when Symantec.cloud first started using its own archiving product, some mailboxes shrunk by more than 80 percent and daily PC backups shrunk by 32 percent as local PST files were not needed.

Setting up a system. It can be a challenge to set up an archiving system from scratch. This was the case for 50 percent of our respondents.

Building an in-house archiving solution is a big challenge. Which software? How to scale the hardware to ensure there is enough room for growth? How to ensure that you capture all the incoming, internal and outgoing email? How to manage the system? How to import existing email into the archive?

An archiving solution from Symantec.clouds is simple to deploy. Using a small piece of software or native email server functionality, emails are sent encrypted to Symantec.cloud where they are stored securely. We take care of the rest: availability, backup, security, continuity, storage, indexing and search.

Email Archiving Top 10 Myths & Challenges

Archiving challenge

Business risks and requirements

Solving the challenges with Symantec.cloud

Tamper-proof archives. Some companies have to ensure that their archives are completely tamper-proof for legal or compliance reasons. Every company benefits from an archive that is authoritative and trustworthy. Half of our respondents (50%) shared this requirement.

Email now forms part of the essential business records of an organization. Just think about how much of your own work and your relationship with customers, suppliers and colleagues goes through email. Irrespective of any legal or regulatory requirements, any business needs to keep accurate records that can be used to record what was said, in court if necessary. In many cases, just having a tamperproof email archive can de-escalate a conflict simply because the other side knows you can prove your point.

Symantec.clouds Archiving solution allows companies to set policies about email retention and archiving that are applied consistently. Messages are stored encrypted in a secure, tamper-proof offsite archive ensuring compliance with relevant laws and regulations. Users can find their archived emails in seconds without contacting IT and companies can search the entire database for legal discovery.

Hardware requirements. More than half (55 percent) of our respondents agreed that the need to keep buying more and more hardware to support an archiving system was a problem.

With an in-house solution, storage capacity is a two-sided problem. On the one hand, there is the risk of overprovisioning buying too much for your current needs at great expense. On the other, buying too little results in difficult choices about what can be archived. In addition, every time storage capacity increases, so does the requirement for backup hardware and redundant capacity to ensure continuity.

The Symantec.cloud Email Archiving solution can store emails for as long as you like. Because there is no inhouse storage, there is no need to buy more capacity than you need just in case. Instead, the service fee is based on the number of mailboxes in your organization and your total yearly storage requirements.

Email Archiving Top 10 Myths & Challenges

Archiving challenge

Business risks and requirements

Solving the challenges with Symantec.cloud

Archive backup. While many companies rely on their existing email server and backup systems as their only email archive (with all the limitations that implies), when companies do deploy an archiving solution it is important to back it up properly. Only 41 percent of our respondents identified this as a problem suggesting that perhaps that some see their archive as a backup or vice versa.

Companies are dealing with more email and bigger attachments and this creates a backup bottleneck. Moving those emails into an on-site archive doesnt remove the backup requirement. Backups require additional, expensive hardware and they need careful management and sizing to ensure that they work consistently and reliably.

A cloud archive solution reduces the volume of data stored locally on email servers, which improves backup performance and requires less backup hardware. It also eliminates the backup burden of locally-stored PST files. However, the Symantec.cloud Archiving solution goes beyond that. It ensures that your email archive is stored in multiple secure, best-practice data centres, ensuring continuity and disaster recovery.

Search. Theres no point having an email archive if you cant find things in it. This is why 58 percent of respondents identified search as a key issue.

Without a central email archive, it can be difficult and time-consuming to search an archive. For example, you may have to restore backup tapes or search users PCs. Its not just dealing with Subject Access Requests under the Data Protection Act or doing discovery for legal proceedings; users sometimes need to find an email that they accidentally deleted.

Users can search their own personal email archive in seconds using our cloud Email Archive. Authorised users can search the entire archive in seconds. Because everything is centralised and every email is archived according to company policies, you can be sure that youre searching the entire archive.

Multiple sites. For a significant minority (37 percent), archiving email from multiple sites and with multiple data centers is a challenge.

Larger companies have to deal with many email servers in different sites. Not only does this require more hardware but it also makes it harder to ensure consistency, availability and searchability.

The Symantec.cloud Archiving solution has a very small software footprint to automatically capture and encrypt email before transferring it to Symantec.cloud data centers for indexing and storage. This makes it much easier and more efficient to archive email for multiple sites.

Email Archiving Top 10 Myths & Challenges

Cloud Archiving
Once the benefits of efficient email archiving are fully understand and the myths dispelled then there is a simple choice between a conventional on-premises approach or a cloud solution. The Symantec MessageLabs Email Archiving.cloud Service delivers exactly this kind of long-term email storage. It stores all email, sent or received by your email server, in our secure data centers. This data is encrypted and multiple copies are taken, freeing you from the expense and effort involved in storing huge amounts of email in-house. We believe it has significant advantages compared with an onsite system: Lower total cost of ownership. Reduce the volume of data stored on your Exchange server by up to 80 percent, improving its performance and easing quota restrictions. Add or reduce users as your needs change without expensive over-provisioning of hardware. Eliminate the need to manage archive backup or availability, especially when you have to deal with multiple sites. Rapid deployment. You dont need to specify, order and install hardware or configure software. We can have your archive up and running in days and we can help you transfer historical email into it. Secure, efficient and under your control. Our solution integrates with Active Directory giving you granular control over archiving policies and reporting. Email is encrypted and compressed on-site before transfer to our archives. We provide rapid search and retrieval so you can find what you need, when you need it.

Email Archiving Top 10 Myths & Challenges

More Information
AMERICAS UNITED STATES 512 Seventh Avenue 6th Floor New York, NY 10018 USA Toll-free +1 866 460 0000 NETHERLANDS WTC Amsterdam Zuidplein 36/H-Tower NL-1077 XV Amsterdam Netherlands Tel +31 (0) 20 799 7929 Fax +31 (0) 20 799 7801 ASIA PACIFIC HONG KONG Room 3006, Central Plaza 18 Harbour Road Tower II Wanchai Hong Kong Main: +852 2528 6206 Fax: +852 2526 2646 BELGIUM/LUXEMBOURG Symantec Belgium Astrid Business Center Is. Meyskensstraat 224 1780 Wemmel, Belgium EUROPE HEADQUARTERS 1270 Lansdowne Court Gloucester Business Park Gloucester, GL3 4AB United Kingdom Tel +44 (0) 1452 627 627 Fax +44 (0) 1452 627 628 Freephone 0800 917 7733 DACH Humboldtstrasse 6 Gewerbegebiet Dornach 85609 Aschheim Deutschland Tel +49 (0) 89 94320 120 Support :+44 (0)870 850 3014 LONDON 3rd Floor 40 Whitfield Street London, W1T 2RH United Kingdom Tel +44 (0) 203 009 6500 Fax +44 (0) 203 009 6552 Support +44 (0) 1452 627 766 NORDICS St. Kongensgade 128 1264 Copenhagen K Danmark Tel +45 33 32 37 18 Fax +45 33 32 37 06 Support +44 (0)870 850 3014 JAPAN Akasaka Intercity 1-11-44 Akasaka Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0052 Main: + 81 3 5114 4540 Fax: + 81 3 5114 4020 Support: + 852 6902 1130 SINGAPORE 6 Temasek Boulevard #11-01 Suntec Tower 4 Singapore 038986 Main: +65 6333 6366 Fax: +65 6235 8885 Support: 800 120 4415 Tel: +32 2 531 11 40 Fax: +32 531 11 41 AUSTRALIA Level 13 207 Kent Street, Sydney NSW 2000 Main: +61 2 8220 7000 Fax: +61 2 8220 7075 Support: 1 800 088 099 Support: + 852 6902 1130

CANADA 170 University Avenue Toronto, ON M5H 3B3 Canada Toll-free :1 866 460 0000

About Symantec.cloud Symantec.cloud uses the power of cloud computing to secure and manage information stored on endpoints and delivered via email, Web, and instant messaging. Building on the foundation of MessageLabs market leading software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings and proven Symantec technologies, Symantec.cloud provides essential protection while virtually eliminating the need to manage hardware and software on site.

More than ten million end users at more than 31,000 organizations ranging from small businesses to the Fortune 500 use Symantec.cloud to secure and manage information stored on endpoints and delivered via email, Web, and instant messaging.

Symantec.cloud helps IT executives to protect information more completely, manage technology more effectively, and rapidly respond to the needs of their business.

For specific country offices and contact numbers, please visit our website.

Symantec.cloud North America 512 7th Ave. 6th Floor New York, NY 10018 USA 1 (646) 519 8100 1 (866) 460 0000 www.MessageLabs.com

Symantec helps organizations secure and manage their information-driven world with managed services, exchange spam filter, managed security services, and email antivirus. Copyright 2010 Symantec Corporation. All rights reserved. Symantec and the Symantec Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. 1/2011 21167362