Email archiving: Planning, policies and product selection

Learn the essentials of email archiving from the perspective of an IT manager in the SearchExchange.com ebook, Email archiving: Planning, policies and product selection. Each month, we'll publish a new chapter that will walk you through a key aspect of the email-archiving project process, including:

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developing a project roadmap, defining an email archiving policy, analyzing email archiving features, improving storage management and user productivity, selecting a product and developing a sample request for proposal (RFP) to send to email-archiving vendors.

EMAIL ARCHIVING: PLANNING, POLICIES AND PRODUCT SELECTION

 Chapter 1: Email-archiving project roadmap
 Chapter 2: Defining an email-archiving policy
 Chapter 3: Choosing product features for compliance and risk reduction
 Chapter 4: Improve storage management and user productivity with archiving
 Chapter 5: Finding the right email-archiving product
 Chapter 6: Conducting an email-archiving RFP

Chapter 1: Email-archiving project roadmap

Like any other IT project, an email-archiving project requires a fully developed plan. In this chapter, archiving expert Kathryn Hilton reviews the four phases required to plan and deploy a successful email-archiving project:

1. Getting started
2. Gathering requirements
3. Selecting a vendor and a product
4. Implementing and deploying the product

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Chapter 2: Defining an email-archiving policy

Any business record, including email, may be subject to discovery proceedings and legal actions. That's why defining and archiving email business records is one of the most important policy concerns for companies that are subject to regulatory compliance requirements and e-discovery.

In this chapter, discover how to implement a comprehensive email-archiving policy that will enforce how users manage and retain their electronic messages. Specifically, you'll learn about:

• The purpose of an email-archiving policy
• Acceptable-use guidelines
• Email management and retention options
• Staff roles and responsibilities in policy compliance

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Chapter 3: Choosing email-archiving product features for compliance and risk reduction

Companies need to make compliance and litigation support a top priority in their email-archiving systems.

This chapter begins with an overview of the three basic email-archiving system architectures available on the market: hosted, in-house and hybrid solutions. It then explains the compliance and litigation support features you need to consider when evaluating an email-archiving product for your organization.

Learn more about the following compliance and litigation support features and find out why you need to consider them before purchasing an email-archiving product:

• Unified messaging and voicemail integration
• Litigation destruction-hold capabilities
• Search and retrieval features
• Audit trails
• Security and access controls

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Chapter 4: Improving storage management and user productivity with email archiving

Companies typically want to implement email-archiving systems to meet regulatory compliance requirements. But an email-archiving product can also improve storage management and user productivity -- as long as you know the right features to look for.

Chapter 4 of our ebook, Email archiving: Planning, policies and product selection, identifies the email-archiving product features that boost user productivity and storage efficiency and outlines their potential impact on client and server performance.

Key points covered in this chapter include:

• Understanding everyday essential email-archiving functionality requirements
• Considering the impact of email client integration
• Identifying features that specifically address user productivity and storage management

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Chapter 5: Finding the right email-archiving product

Once a company determines which email-archiving features most suit its particular needs, the quest for the right email-archiving product begins.

Chapter 5 of Email archiving: Planning, policies and product selection reveals best practices for compiling a list of prospective products and vendors based on features, services and pricing.

Experts Stephen Foskett and Kathryn Hilton will walk you step-by-step through the process of finding the right email-archiving product and explain how to:

• Research email-archiving products to meet specific compliance criteria
• Develop and build a master list of potential email-archiving products
• Narrow down your list of vendors to the top three or four
• Initiate a request for information (RFI)
• Avoid being sold email-archiving features you don't need
• Build a business case for email-archiving to present to executive management so you can begin the RFP and implementation process

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Chapter 6: Conducting an email-archiving RFP

After narrowing down a list of prospective email-archiving products, it's time to proceed to the purchasing phase. Understanding the request for proposal (RFP) process is key to getting the email-archiving product and price you want.

Surprisingly, it's not always the cheapest product or the frontrunner in the vendor selection process that will suit your company's specific needs. A well-designed RFP will help narrow down the choices.

In Chapter 6, archiving experts Stephen Foskett and Kathryn Hilton guide you through the four stages of an RFP process:

1. Creating an RFP document
2. Defining the RFP process for respondents
3. Communicating with vendors during the RFP process
4. Making a final email-archiving product selection

Download this chapter.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Kathryn Hilton has worked in technology for more than 20 years as an industry analyst for Gartner Group and for several large storage companies. Hilton received a bachelor of arts degree in business economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a master's degree in business administration from the University of Colorado Leeds School of Business. She is currently a senior analyst for policy at Contoural Inc., a provider of business and technology consulting services that focuses on litigation readiness, compliance, information and records management, and data storage strategy.

Marion Weiler has worked in technology for more than 23 years, specializing in a number of areas including email archival, email systems design and management, and IT architecture. Weiler received a bachelor of arts degree in biology from the University of California, San Diego, and a master's degree in business administration from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is currently a senior analyst for policy at Contoural Inc., a technology consulting firm based in Mountain View, Calif., that focuses on litigation readiness, compliance, information and records management, and data storage strategy.

Stephen Foskett is director of the data practice at Contoural Inc., a Mountain View, Calif.-based consulting firm that provides strategic consulting to Fortune 500 companies to help them align their storage and computing infrastructures with their business objectives. Foskett has provided vendor-independent end-user consulting on storage for more than 10 years, written numerous articles and spoken extensively at trade shows on storage-related topics.