Importance of Email Archiving Goes Beyond Compliance

Barracuda Networks Inc., in email and Web security appliances, released a new study that examines the adoption of message archiving solutions within a cross-section of organizations in North America. Collected from the responses of 200 IT professionals in North America, the survey found that an overwhelming majority, nearly 82 percent, view email archiving as ‘important’ or ‘very important’ for their organization. Further, more than two-thirds of respondents cited reasons other than compliance as their main consideration for implementing an email archiving solution.
 
Respondents cited reasons such as user access to archived email (21 percent), email retention is considered a best practice (15 percent) and providing access to old email when storage quotas are in effect (15 percent), as the most important reasons for archiving email.
 
“Email archiving is not just for organizations in heavily-regulated industries such as the financial, healthcare or government sectors,” said Stephen Pao, vice president of product management for Barracuda Networks. “Organizations from a range of vertical markets recognize that email archiving leads to a more efficient network from an IT standpoint as well as from the end user’s perspective.”
 
Email retention and e-discovery requirements
Nearly half (48 percent) of respondents indicated that they have been involved in a litigation request that required email as part of the discovery process, however, only 11 percent of respondents involved in a litigation request involving email had an archiving solution in place to assist with the discovery process.
 
More than one-third (33 percent) of respondents indicated that it took up to one month to produce email as part of an e-discovery request without the aid of an email archiving solution.   
 
“This data in particular represents a significant amount of resources and bandwidth being spent on search and retrieval of email for organizations without the aid of an archiving solution,” said Pao. “Considering the time restrictions that are often associated with delivering email in the discovery process – whether it is in the course of litigation or otherwise – organizations risk the possibility of fines and other consequences if they are not able to meet discovery deadlines due to inefficient search and storage processes.”
 
Approximately 38 percent of respondents indicated that they are considering plans to implement a solution. This represents nearly a 10 percent increase over last year, in which about 29 percent of respondents to a similar survey by Barracuda Networks indicated that they were planning to implement an archiving solution (for email or IM) within the year.