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E-Discovery: Archiving E-mail Can Be Cheap Insurance
A December 2006 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that businesses, schools, and even not for profit organizations must be able to produce electronic documentation in the discovery process. This includes e-mail, and instant messaging logs. After reading and re-reading ( I am not a lawyer nor play one on TV) The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Amendment 2072 of Title 28 of The U.S. Code (a 76 page document) it becomes clear that companies not taking steps to archive e-mail maybe climbing a slippery slope.
The entire process of E-Discovery appears to put the onus of producing “electronic” information in the discovery process on the respondent in a Federal case. The consequences of failing to provide such material could result in the loss of a Federal suit, because the courts appear to have taken the position that deleted e-mail is the same as shredding documents. If this isn’t enough to cause concern, legislation on the state level is being introduced to require businesses and other organizations to archive e-mail for multi-year periods. It seems to me that it is time to plan, budget, and implement an effective e-mail archiving solution for your business or organization Many small businesses may worry that e-mail archiving will be an expensive and difficult undertaking. It doesn’t have to be. The first questions to ask are what would the loss of a lawsuit cost? What would it cost to hire a consultant to attempt to restore an e-mail from long ago, if possible? The actual price of GFi Mail Archiver V4 for a 100 mailbox archive package is about $23.40 per mailbox including maintenance. Mail Archiver V 4.from GFi, provides a piece of the puzzle for compliance. An easy to install, and configure application, based on Dot Net 2.0, and ASP.Net technologies. This program is designed to work in an Active Directory/Exchange Server environment. By utilizing the journaling feature of Exchange Server 2003, your inbound/outbound/internal e-mails can be archived either into the built in Firebird SQL, or Microsoft SQL Server database systems. You are able to restore e-mails through an easy to use web interface, group by conversation, user or other criteria. An added benefit is the ability to archive e-mail in Outlook PST files with the Mail Archiver import feature. Users can quickly restore deleted e-mails from the Mail Archiver web interface as well. I recommend that you break your database into logical units (Archive Stores in Mail Archiver lingo) with make sense names such as Mail Archiver 2007 Q2. By combining a W.O.R. M. device with the software, your e-mails are preserved in a permanent record, and can be retrieved easily. FrugaLBrothers will be more than happy to provide further information, including a online demo by contacting 260.724.2748. |
