Data And Information Part 1 : E-mail Archiving

The current state of e-mail

Today e-mail is such an integral part of our day to day lives. So much so, that the thought of being without it is inconceivable. This is realised nowhere more so than in the corporate environment. Despite the high development and vast spread of e-mail over previous years, it is still not without its problems. Viruses and SPAM being the main concerns, but a slightly more unlikely issue is that of storage space. Users have turned their mailboxes into electronic filing cabinets whereby everything is stored away into neat folder structures. Why do they do this? The obvious answer being because it is easy. Policing from IT Administrators is an obvious solution to the issue, but with the ever increasing integration between office systems, can we simply set black and white guidelines for how and where the e-mails are stored and for how long?

How can I combat these issues?

Its all too easy for a user to scan read an e-mail using auto-preview, and then just file it away knowing it will be there for when they need to address it properly. The end result of this is a slowing mail server with mailboxes well over the optimum size. IT...