Understanding the Different Approaches to Archiving Email (Part 1 of 4)

Posted by Rick Dales, VP Product Marketing

Discussing email archiving can be challenging, because the phrase “email archiving” is interpreted in very different ways, based upon the set of problems users are trying to address. Similarly, dedicated email archiving systems are not alike, and may offer different approaches to archiving.

Before selecting an email archive, it’s important to first understand the fundamental differences between these different approaches. Each one has pros and cons, depending on your archiving goals. These goals typically include (in no particular order):

1. Providing a central, searchable, deduplicated repository of email data to use for the enforcement of litigation hold orders and the execution of legal discovery requests
2. Provision of a systematic review process to monitor content sent/received by regulated employees (generally this is only in the financial services space)
3. Providing easy access for users to their historical mail for productivity purposes, without keeping all of the mail on the production mail system
4. Maintaining access to historical information when employees leave the organization

As I will explain over my next few posts, each of the current archiving approaches has limitations when trying to address all of these challenges. As a result, the selection of an email archiving system must first consider the best archiving approach to achieve your goals. Given that these goals can be in conflict, it will be equally important to prioritize your objectives and decide which items you are willing to make compromises on.

In my next few blog posts, I will provide a high-level overview of the main archiving approaches, outlining the pros and cons of each, from my perspective. (full disclosure: Fortiva uses a journaled archiving approach)