After document archiving, let us know a bit about email archiving. Email today is the most undisputed and popular mode of business communication. According to a study by Gartner Group, 97% of all business communication is carried over emails. This underscores the fact that emails form a good part of a company’s business records. As per a business estimate, up to 83% of a company’s critical data lies embedded within emails. To take care of the email preservation business, Email Archiving System (very much in sync with DMS) is the need of the hour.
An Email Archiving System (EMS) extracts the message contents and the attachments thereof from all incoming and outgoing mails and indexes them in a read-only format. The indexing process ensures that the emails can be retrieved into their original state when required later. As an EMS stores the emails in compressed format, the mail server gets back a lot of its space.
Like documents, emails can also be asked for evidence in a court of law. Auditors can also call for them at any point of time. This makes sense for companies to invest in an EMS as well as a part of their overall document archival mechanism.
There are two broad methods of file archiving – in-house and hosted solutions. Under the in-house system, the repository is maintained within the office building itself. This method offers greater control over the documents and helps maintain confidentiality. The repository is protected by the company’s IT security systems like antivirus software and firewalls.
On the other hand, in a hosted solution, the application is loaded in the company’s email server. This application captures the mails that are routed through the server and transports them in compressed format to a third party data warehousing solution provider for archival. The hosted solution method has a number of benefits. It has a low start-up cost. The running cost is also less. The solution is capable of being implemented rapidly. There are a few disadvantages also. You run the risk of not being able to retrieve the email/document on time (though the probability of such occurrence is very less); the service provider may also not be able to comply with the agreed confidentiality and regulatory terms. Even, in the worst case, the service provider may go out of business