Don't wait to adopt an email archive system
It's common for people to wonder if they need to wait to look at email archiving before they move to a new version of their email system. The answer is really "no." You should fully implement the current email archiving system before migrating a customer to a newer version, the reason being performance. When you create an email archive, you're moving a lot of the email content off email servers and onto archive servers. If that's already in place, when you migrate you generally have a lot less content on the email server that you need to migrate.
Read more of Bill Tolson's migration response on SearchStorage.com.
Single-instance storage is a must-have
When evaluating email archive systems for customers, make sure it has the ability to create one copy of the email and attachment so that only one copy will reside in the archive. That way your customer could potentially save a great deal of storage space over time, and it's much easier for an archive system to track the lifecycle of a single instance.
Read more of Bill Tolson's single-instance storage response on SearchStorage.com.
Don't overlook email metadata
Email normally has metadata associated with it. If a customer is sued, emails will be requested. Having metadata around the message or messages can prove that it's an original message, it came through a certain set of servers, it arrived at a specific time and the message was reviewed at a certain time -- all of this metadata usually helps to prove originality and immutability of the message. Be sure to archive the entire email.
Read more of Bill Tolson's metadata response on SearchStorage.com.
