Product Overview

There are two primary types of products for email archiving, Policy and Compliance products. While both will provide similar back end services such as storage management and search/discovery, the method by which each product selects and obtains the messages for archiving is different and typically security, access and the application interface to your messaging system is different. In addition, while products typically specialize in one function or the other, some products will perform both functions. A short description of the differences is presented below.

• Compliance products - Compliance archive products typically archive all messages as they are created or received. Generally speaking,  compliance archive solutions will preserve the archived messages such that the contents cannot be modified after the fact.  Many compliance solutions will work with or depend upon the underlying storage technology to achieve this.  Access to the archive data is typically tightly controlled. This is typically the type of product you will want if you are trying to achieve or maintain compliance with various governmental regulations.  Sophisticated search facilities are typically provided to help with legal discovery motions or other governmental requirements.  Messaging system vendors will usually provide the interface for this type of archiving such as the journaling feature of Microsoft Exchange although other mail systems may achieve this by use of a features called bifurcation  (an automatic bcc of all messages to the archive application).  In addition to the compliance benefits of this type of system, it can be used to help provide access to messages for disaster recovery purposes or to help re-build a failed messaging server.

• Policy products - Policy products provide for a more selective type of archiving, typically this type of archiving is controlled by rules or policies that specify which messages are archived under what set of conditions. (I.E. ARCHIVE ALL MESSAGES GREATER THAN 6 MONTHS OLD OR THAT CONTAIN AN ATTACHMENT GREATER THAN 1 MB). This type of application may also allow you to leave a "stub" behind in the messaging system that indicates that the message has been removed from the primary information store and moved to archive storage.  This type of archive application is typically used when you are trying to manage the growth of your information store or are trying to comply with your organizations document retention policies.  Because, this type of application does not archive all messages, it is typically not compliant with government regulations. Access to this archive data is generally permitted for all users, but only to their own messages but access can be provided for manager/Secretary arrangements, Manager/subordinate relationships or new employee/old employee relationships as well., this access is provided either by clicking on the "stub" which will fetch the message from the archive store or by use of a search facility within the application or via a web interface.

• Hybrid products - Some archive applications are capable of providing both types of archive and access as well, these are typically referred to as a hybrid application.

Here is the listing of the email archive products we sell and support.

Instant Messaging archive products are relatively new and not as mature as email archive products.  Generally speaking, while most of the laws and regulations have not specifically addressed Instant Messaging, it is generally accepted that the requirements for IM archiving systems are the same as for email archive systems.  Instant Messaging is fundamentally different from email in that a typical IM conversation is composed of several individual messages combined into a more meaningful thread; most archive applications therefore capture entire message threads rather than individual messages such as email archive applications do.  This has actually been useful for archive applications, since the entire thread can then be indexed and archived and later retrieved in it's context which tends to make the message thread more meaningful than individual messages.  Some IM management and security products have take advantage of that and rather than developing a separate archive module, have instead developed an interface to an existing email archive application. 

This has several distinct advantages for the end user and the IT department;

• Storage Management is simplified since only one repository is required regardless of the source of the message.  In cases where compliant storage systems are required, this helps reduce the cost of maintaining compliant storage for archival.

• Searching the archive in simplified because only one interface needs to be in place for end users and the IT department regardless of the source of the message.

• Securing access to the application and the data is simplified since the same rules typically apply to both email and IM. This reduces the chances of error and the maintenance of security rules for 2 independent applications.

Here is the listing of the Instant Messaging archive products we sell and support.