Mail archiving: Easing the load on your mail server - and yourself!
Emails are a significant part of a business's records, and need to be stored to meet organizational needs as well as legal and compliance requirements. How this is done can make an incredible difference to the lives of both end-users and administrators.
Is your organization archiving email the right way?
An Exchange or email server may easily be brought down when its mailboxes contain too many large email attachments or when there are large numbers of email accounts. System administrators usually solve this by putting a quota on each mailbox so as to limit the amount of information stored on the server while moving older emails to a different location so as not to surpass this limit. This can irritate or frustrate end-users, especially when they need to retrieve emails that date back to many years before. In order to save these emails and respect the quota simultaneously, some end-users store their email in PST files (open proprietary file formats that are used for storing copies of messages) which they either save on their local machine or on a network share. If this sounds like the system in place at your organization, steady yourself: You might be in for a few problems.
When stored locally, PST files cannot be backed up regularly. This means that if one of them is damaged or accidentally deleted, the emails within it are lost. On the other hand, when end-users store their PST files on a network share, this simply transfers the whole issue of storage space from one location (the server) to another (the network share), while also presenting the need to increase the number of backups coupled with the ordeal of having to manage all those PST files - a pet hate for many administrators.
How to tackle this storage problem
So how can you tackle this storage problem?
Simple - implement a solid mail archiving system. Email archives consume less physical storage space than any other email storage method and moderate the demand for storage space by reducing the amount of online emails on the mail server. Also, message contents and attachments can be automatically extracted from both incoming and outgoing emails and, after indexing, stored in a read-only format - ensuring archived records are preserved in their original state as certain legislation requires.
As for the risk of accidental or intentional deletion of emails by end-users, this is close to impossible when using email archives as a copy of all email is saved and accessible in a centralized system. This also means that administrators do not need to go through the hurdle of searching manually for and through personal archives on each and every local machine whenever a particular email thread is requested for litigation support or business needs. With just a few clicks, end-users and/or administrators can access whichever email they like.
Another point to keep in mind is that different archiving technologies can affect the efficiency of an archiving solution. Microsoft, for example, believes stubbing can create problems with performance, as opposed to journaling which does not require any additional software to be installed on the Exchange Server, saves email in a safe scalable database and does all archiving activities on a system separate from the Exchange server. So make sure that when choosing an archiving solution, you opt for one that addresses this concern.
Using a good mail archiving solution not only simplifies the lives of both administrators and employees, but also helps manage email server resources efficiently while meeting business needs.
This guest post was provided by Christina Goggi on behalf of GFI Software Ltd. GFI is a leading software developer that provides a single source for network administrators to address their network security, content security and messaging needs. Find more information about this, at: GFI email archiving solution.
All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
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