Southern Technology Group Integrates El Fresko MagnaStor Software

Southern Technology Group (STG), provider of document management solutions and leading reseller for Laserfiche, announced the addition of MagnaStor to its solution suite.

STG is integrating El Fresko Technologies‘ patent-pending MagnaStor software as the archive repository at the core of its Laserfiche document management solution. This provides STG’s customers with the highest level of compliance and transforms their records management program using next-generation, purpose-built technology. MagnaStor eliminates the risks and potential for failure associated with general purpose file systems, such as Windows NTFS.

"General purpose file systems, even when enhanced with third-party WORM wrappers or filters, are not designed for compliance or e-Discovery," said Mark Fowlie, CEO of El Fresko Technologies. "The file system is the core of any compliance solution and as such, it is imperative that it provides the ability to embed compliance policy and provide an immutable chain of custody. General purpose file systems were never designed for this purpose."

"Businesses in virtually every industry are faced with strict regulatory requirements. As a result, they must consistently enforce records policies that will stand up during an audit," said Robert McCoy, President of Southern Technology Group. "Our MagnaStor integration ensures there is no compliance control gap between the information stored in a customer’s records management system and the file system on which it is hosted. This provides a secure chain of custody and ironclad compliance."

The Importance of Continuous Compliance
The increasing diversity of information systems, platforms, and human factors create exceptional challenges for business in ensuring that compliance policies and procedures are being consistently and continuously applied throughout an organization. Brief outages or control gaps can significantly impact the evidential quality of stored records and elevate the risk of a compliance audit or an e-Discovery failure.

Complicating strong compliance is the inability of traditional file systems to implement continuous, non-discretionary control over all file system contents, including user data and metadata. MagnaStor overcomes this challenge by providing true WORM (write-once, read-many) operation that can establish the chain of custody for any file and verify its authenticity.

"The integrity of a company’s records can be easily challenged unless steps are taken to ensure an unbroken audit history and authenticity of every file. Chain-of-custody weaknesses occur when information systems are subject to discretionary controls," said Jeff Ellestad, Director of Product Management for El Fresko. "MagnaStor is the first file system that is purpose built to meet the complete and comprehensive needs of compliant archiving and e-Discovery. Corporate compliance and audit objectives are integrated as non-discretionary controls within the file system core as imprinted, permanent policy, which cannot be circumvented. A perpetual journal maintains a record of every approved event, ensuring an irrefutable chain of custody for the file system as a whole as well as every individual file, even across system migrations."