Email Archiving for Legal Purposes 1

[AdmanOK]

I have been asked to do some research on products that will archive emails for legal purposes. We need to be able to keep a copy of EVERY email generated in the company, whether it be incoming, outgoing or internal. Does anyone have any experience or recommendations for something like this?

 

[Sweetworks]

I just purchased GFI mail essenitials for it's SPAM filter software.

It has a build in archive that save's to a text file every message in and out.

You can download a free trial for evauation (It think it is a 45 day trial.)

http://www.gfi.com

 

[esmithbda]

If you aren't given a budget (meaning you can't buy a commercial solution) and if you have some basic scripting skills - then look into "Event Sinks". Under Exchange 2k and 2k3 these allow you to execute code based on certain events that occur ("incoming mail" for example).
The code that gets executed could then write out the message to a file in a directory that you specify.

I would imagine that regardless of what option you go with, you are going to want to compress and backup older data and then remove it - otherwise that could get ugly fast.

 

[Matrixa]

admanok

I am in the same situation, I have to archive my email and keep them for three years at Ready notice. Heres how I do it.

Using a exhange function call exchange merge 6.0 witch is on the exchange disk.

copy the Exchange.exe and exchange.ini in the Bin folder.

Set a schedule to run the item every night or according to you backup schedule. This will export you user store in to indivual pst files. When finished then just backup that5 folder and give it A date. I perform this daily on the system then backup offsite to tape one a month.

Follow the White Rabbit !

 

[AdmanOK]

Sweetworks - I was just looking at GFI but it only says that it can archive inbound and outbound email... it makes no mention of internal email which is just as important for my project.

Matrixa - Thanks for the suggestion, but this still only captures a snapshot of the db once a day, it doesn't get anything that might be sent and deleted inside of the time period. Also it would mean that I would have to permanently store about 20gb of data every day!

 

[tmt7734]

If this is for SEC 17a-3, 4 compliance don't forget the third party requirement. I use Iron Mountain for mine, it's fully compliant, they deal with the storage, and it has a great web interface.

 

[wallst32]

Exchange 2000 has this function built-in. Look at the store properties, and there is a checkbox for "archive all messages". You then point it to a mailbox or public folder.

 

[jaksen112]

I've been using EAS (exchange archive solution) for over a year now, works like a charm but isnt cheap. I also archive for legal purposes, and our protocol is that the archiving happens instantly and there is no or little chance for manipulation of the messages. I used to use Exchange archive to PST which seemed fine until we needed to search through GB's of pst's, this took FOREVER.

The EAS product uses sql db's for fast searching and retrieval.

01110000

 

[Zelandakh]

There is also the KVS Enterprise Vault solution. Definitely not cheap but it works!

 

[AdmanOK]

The KVS system looks interesting... I'm looking a WebEx demo of it next week... what prince range does the product ballpark in?

 

[Zelandakh]

depends on the users. VERY BALLPARK is $200 per user. But remember it is a server product that you pay for and then you buy the user licences. So it starts off expensive for a few users but per user it drops a great deal once you get to thousands of users.

 

[tmt7734]

I looked at KVS and we couldn't afford it. I'm paying $11 per gig per month for Iron mountain's product. Zero setup cost on 3 year contract.

 

[gpalmer]

I just implemented the Enterprise Vault solution from KVS. Yes it is expensive, but has been worth it. So far I've only had a couple of issues. Tech support is SLOW and if you have the need to extract emails from the vault, purchase the Discovery Option. The Archive Explorer is also a nice edition, but as usual, it is extra.