Most businesses choose their email storage server software according to what solutions are offered by their email service provider. For example, many businesses using Office 365 will opt for a Microsoft archiving product because they are familiar the brand and it saves them investing time and money to explore other options.
However, opting for email storage server software from a provider with which your business is familiar is not always the best course of action. For example, the Office 365 archive search engine is limited on the attachment file types it can search for. Only two searches can be performed at a time, exports of search data can only be conducted one at a time, and by default, only 250 results are displayed per search. This may limit your business´s ability to respond to an eDiscovery request or comply with a regulatory audit.
You might also find that the way in which certain email storage server software copies and archives email data can cause problems. Some – notably Microsoft´s archiving products – copy every email in its entirety as it passes through the mail server, quickly exhausting disc space and affecting the processing power available to the server – potentially delaying the delivery of both inbound and outbound emails.
What Options Exist for Email Storage Server Software?
Plenty. The problem is filtering out any email storage server software that is not appropriate for your business. Few businesses – especially those operating in regulated industries – have similar email storage requirements, although there are some key features that should be included in every email archiving solution:
Real Time Email Archiving
Real time email archiving is essential for all businesses in order to comply with eDiscovery requirements under the Federal Rules of Civil Disclosure. Real time email archiving ensures a copy is made of each email as it passes through the mail server, whereas periodic archiving allows the opportunity for an email to be deleted or altered before a copy is made.
Email Data Deduplication
It was mentioned above that Microsoft´s archiving products copy every email in its entirety, whereas some email storage server software removes duplicated content before the email is indexed and compressed. This process not only saves space on the server, but facilitates faster searches and produces easier-to-navigate search results.
Audit Logs and Audit Trails
In order to ensure compliance with many regulatory standards, email storage server software should be able to provide administrators with audit logs revealing who has accessed archived data, and audit trails displaying how the archived data is used. As an additional point, mechanisms should be in place to prevent the deletion or alteration of an email during a set retention period. Currently, there is audit log retention in Office 365 E1 plan. E3 only retains the log records for 90 days, and E5 plans for just 1 year.
Compatibility, Scalability and Flexibility
Naturally you will need to know the archiving solution you select is compatible with your business´s mail server and email services, and that it is capable of scaling up as your business increases in size. Flexibility can be important for businesses who want to store different categories of email for different retention periods, and essential for businesses in regulated industries who might otherwise have to keep every email for five, six or seven years.
Space Limitations on Email Storage Server Software
One things businesses certainly need to be aware of is space limitations on email storage server software. Always be aware that business email traffic is increasing by 5% annually and budget accordingly. Even with features such as deduplication storage space can be exhausted quickly, and especially so if your chosen email storage server software lacks the flexibility to archive one category of email data for x amount of years and another category of email data for y amount of years.
If you are concerned your business is likely to consume a significant amount of storage space in the future, it may be worthwhile considering a cloud-based or hybrid solution that gives you extra capacity without eliminating the important features mentioned above. Cloud-based email storage server software can certainly be a more cost-effective solution in the long run, and certainly cheaper than having to buy addition servers to compensate for a lack of performance caused by “server bloat”.
Cloud-based email storage server software operates in the same way as software installed behind your mail server except that emails are stored and encrypted in a secure data center rather than locally. Management of the email data is maintained via a web-based portal and when copies of emails or search requests are made, transfers of data are conducted over an encrypted channel to ensure the integrity of the data in transit. Searches can also be performed by employees (if you allow this) through their mail client to ease the burden on the IT team.
Cloud-Based Email Storage Server Software from ArcTitan
ArcTitan is SpamTitan´s cloud-based email storage server software that offers businesses all the key features required for an email archiving solution to be both compliant with industry standards and effective. Being a cloud-based solution, there are no limitations on the amount of email data that can be stored and our email storage software is scalable up to 6,000 users.
Despite going through the process of deduplication, ArcTitan can index, compress and store more than 200 emails per second. With all the duplicated content removed however, ArcTitan can search a database of 30 million emails in less than a second and deliver results in a variety of formats. Implementation of the solution takes just minutes, and existing archive databases can easily be imported without the need for expensive and time-consuming data conversion.
With ArcTitan, there is no risk of an email database becoming fragmented due to the need to create additional space on the mail server, so email management stays within the control of the IT department. Administrators can use ArcTitan´s delegated access feature to set employee permission levels and monitor access to archived data via tamper-evident audit logs.
Our cloud-based email storage server software is compatible with every operating system, mail server and email service, and has been specifically designed for ease of use and maximum flexibility. If fact, we are so confident that businesses will appreciate our cloud-based email storage server software, we are offering the opportunity to see ArcTitan in action for free.
Take the Opportunity to See ArcTitan for Free
If your business would like to evaluate the benefits of a cloud-based email storage server software, we invite you to contact us and request a free demonstration of ArcTitan in action. Our team of experienced Sales Technicians will be happy to answer any questions you have about email archiving solutions and schedule your free demonstration at a convenient time for you and your team..
You are under no obligation to subscribe to our service at the end of the demo, but if you agree with us that ArcTitan is an appropriate archiving solution for your business, you have the choice from a number of competitively priced licensing agreements.
