It's 2009... Do You Know Where Your Email Is?

Happy New Year to all of you from all of us here at Proofpoint! As we enter a new year, it's a good time to take a look at your organization's current policies and future plans relating to email. One topic that's sure to be hot in the coming year is email archiving and the January issue of CFO Magazine has a good article with tips about how you should manage your email archives and the key criteria to consider when selecting an email archiving solution.

In the article, some best practices, courtesy of industry analysts Forrester are cited:

"So how should you manage your E-mail archives? Forrester recommends four key actions: rightsize the archiving infrastructure; rehearse E-discovery scenarios; consider archiving other kinds of files, such as voice mail, in addition to E-mail; and manage the archive for the long term. In sum, archiving requires more than just a makeshift solution. In particular, rightsizing the infrastructure usually means that companies will need more storage than they think. "Two of the most commonly cited mistakes are not dedicating enough capacity and [enough processing] power to the archive," says Forrester, warning companies not to archive on the cheap."

The director of compliance technology at investment firm Cowen and Co. - who use Proofpoint Email Archiving to retain email - is also quoted in the article.

Using a hybrid or SaaS-based archiving solution is a good way to ensure that you always have enough capacity for email storage - even as the size of messages and their attachments grow - and enough CPU horsepower for search and discovery.

If you're interested in these topics, don't miss the kickoff of Proofpoint's 2009 web seminar series - a webinar on "The Truth about Email Archiving: Understanding the Costs, Security and Control." Special guest Mike Osterman will present his latest research on email archiving TCO. Join us to learn about the different types of email archiving solutions (on-premises, SaaS based and hybrid) and which offer the lowest total cost of ownership.