Data Archive Migrations

Keeping Data Forever

2009-11-07T11:29:00.006-06:00

David Ferris had an interesting post the other day hinting of keeping all data forever. (Here) At Procedo, this is something that we're seeing with our customers as well. Over the course of the past few years we have seen our average customer increase from 2-3 TB to well over 10TB.

Over the past two months we've also had two requests for quotes from customers that have over 1PB of archived content each. We also have many customers that ask if we can increase retention during a migration applying a new retention period to all legacy archived data.

What this trend is confirming for us is that customers are keeping more data, longer. Customers who 6 years ago applied a 3 year retention period to their data still have it and don't know if or when they may turn on expiry to purge the data.

Storage growth is going to continue to compound as the rate at which we are creating new data is increasing multi-fold and we're not purging the legacy data. At our current rate, we could start to see the 100TB archive as being normal for the good majority of our customers. Needless to say, our storage partners are starting to realize the archive market is going to be a major growth area for them in the next few years.

The Recession Is Over!

2009-11-02T09:19:00.002-06:00

Yeah yeah, I know this is still being debated. I waited for awhile to post after reading this as just like everyone, has their doubts regarding if this is true or not, did the cash for clunkers create an artificial high, did the expired, soon to be expanded $8000 homebuyer credit contribute, etc.

At Procedo we have weathered through this past 12 months just like everyone. Being impacted in at least one way or another during that time. However, we are seeing the activity levels or real deals starting to increase. What is interesting is that during the time we never really saw a dip in our activity, but what we are seeing now is an increase of deals starting to close. The shear volume of deals increasing, but more importantly, real deals that have been on the radar for some time with our clients preparing for them are starting to close as well.

We're seeing more of the "want to get done" deals happening vs. just the "need to get done."

What we're also seeing, is the continued need and drive towards archive improvements. As many of our partners have indicated over the years, archiving is continuing to be an integral part of the organization and is no longer just a want. Companies are realizing the vast benefits of archiving. What we are starting to see a major trend with is not just archiving, but companies demanding more from their archives and therefore an increase in migrations from one archiving platform to another.

We're excited to be partnered with so many leading providers in the archiving space and working with them bring new customers to their platform through competitive archive migrations.

Users, do they really matter?

2009-07-16T01:41:00.004-05:00

I've been working in the world of providing IT solutions for over 15 years now in various capacities. However, the one thing that has never changed from any role I've been involved with is that there are "users" we all need to deal with. From my consulting days, "user" was just another four letter word. Anyone who has ever consulted dreaded hearing that "a user called and is having a problem." Especially if it was right after an upgrade or a major system change.

In the world of archiving, the user seems to be forgotten when we speak to a lot of our potential clients, until the user calls...

So what about the user in archiving, do they really matter? Is the users input really important in selecting an archive? Does it really matter how easy it is for the user to get access to their archived content?

Obviously, the simple answer is yes, they do. The more complex answer is, "yes they matter and even more important, their experiences should be positive and as non-impacting to the way they use their email/archive."

Shortcutting objects in the archive in Exchange became the standard, because it provided users with virtually the same way to access their data as if it was in Exchange. So what happens when the company migrates their archived content from one application to another? So what happens when the shortcuts are now different and they don't function like they are supposed to, or they look different than new shortcuts, or you can't click on them the same way you can new shortcuts? Does it really matter? Does it really matter that the user experience is now negative with the new multi-million dollar archive system you just deployed?

Do users really matter? maybe, maybe not. Go ahead, disrupt their environment, you'll find out soon enough. When migrating, make sure you provide them a positive experience. If not, they will blame the new archive - not the old one you just migrated from.

Is Different Better?

2009-06-22T03:10:00.003-05:00

One of the constant challenges that our customers struggle with is, " Is Different Better?" Our customers approach us when they are ready to make a change for a significant portion of their archive environment. This might be the storage, the application or both. Regardless, making a change is a significant stress activity for our customers. They ask the usual questions "If I change, can I search better?", "If I change, will I ever have to manage the archive again?

Something that we always tell our customers is to make sure that the decision they are making to change will bring them a better balance of what they need from their archive. Not every archive is perfect, even though some vendors claims theirs to be, but why change unless there is improvement? Even if the improvement is perception to the end users. Selecting a solution that provides them a better balance will make them more satisfied with their decision and therefore reduces the stress of the change.

Change can be good, change can be bad, change that creates a better balance is key. Make sure when you decide which path you are going down, that you will create a better balanced environment.

Archive Storage Decisions - Cloud or On-Premise?

2009-05-22T10:20:00.018-05:00

When selecting an archive there are a few major decisions that impact the rest of the design. The first one that will guide the other decisions comes down to, Hosted vs. On-Premise. This is not an easy decision and we don't expect that to change anytime soon. This decision used to be black & white, however this is changing, the decision was either outsource everything or keep everything on-premise. If choosing on-premise, the next decision was to select the archive storage platform, NetApp SnapLock, EMC Centera, HDS HCAP and recently Data Domain plus others.

There is somewhere north of 30,000 on-premise enterprise deployments of archiving solutions today. As the data growth of these archives continues to sky-rocket, many of these customers are debating on shifting their archive to the cloud. While many companies are doing just this and migrating to cloud archive vendors like LiveOffice, there are many others that are hesitant to throw away their investment in their on-premise archive solution.

Imagine if these customers would have the ability to keep their most accessed data (newest) stored in the on-premise archive storage solution (NetApp, Centera, HCAP, DDUP, etc) while being able to migrate all of the least accessed (oldest) data in the cloud in an automated fashion.

The ability to scale the archive would be endless and the capital expenses would be minimized while having a virtual unlimited storage pool in the cloud to work with. All while ensuring that the end users access their data in the same way they do today. Such as, searching working the same way, shortcuts still working and the users have no idea their data is in the cloud.

Imagine...

Archiving, No Longer a Want

2009-04-15T10:15:00.009-05:00

In the current economy many people are scaling back on all forms of spending. Our world's spending habits have changed from wants and desires to focusing only on needs. This is clear across not only personal spending habits but corporate purchases as well. Large "non-essential" purchases have been delayed if not cancelled all together.

Keeping this in mind, we're seeing a really interesting trend in archive deployments and archive spending. Our first quarter of 2009 saw an increase of opportunities of over 300% over the same quarter a year ago and 250% over the 4th quarter of 2009. Already only 15 days into Q2 we've already seen more inquiries this quarter than we did in the same quarter of 2008, which puts us on pace to a 200% increase over Q1 2009.

These statistics and trends that we are seeing along with what our partners are seeing, is that archiving has moved beyond a want in corporate data centers. Clearly the benefits of archiving and storage efficiencies that come with it are being defined as a need across all verticals.

Another trend that shows that migrations are a large part of this is we had many application vendors reach out to us in the first quarter of this year to add support for their applications to PAMM. Look for some of these announcements throughout the rest of this quarter as our solutions become integrated.

Archiving is now critical to almost every organization, ensure you perform proper due diligence in selecting your new archive for the solution that best fits your needs and look to PAMM to help you get there.

Which archive solution is best for me?

2009-04-13T00:52:00.005-05:00

One question that our technical and sales teams get asked all the time is "Which application/solution should we pick?" One thing that is guaranteed is that we'll never provide an answer to this. Being in the unique position as the industry leader in the archive migration market, we enable all of our partners sell their products. We make the commitment to our partners that we will support them, but will not recommend them.

This doesn't stop our customers from asking, so what we do is position this back to our customers. "What is important for your archive solution?" While all archiving applications perform the same basic tasks, the key for each customer is in the finer details. What are their goals of the archive app. Some companies may want to ensure it is totally hands off to them, so for these customers, we're migrating from an on-premise to a Cloud provider. Others may have a specific need in e-discovery that only one on-premise solution provides. Here we'll perform an on-premise to on-premise migration.

Why are there so many options for archiving today? There is no company that does everything perfectly yet today. Each partner performs certain tasks better than any other one out there, but isn't the end all be all for everyone. If there was, the competition wouldn't be as fierce as it is today.

Which archive solution is best for me? The answer is simple, which ever one fulfills your greatest needs. For each company, this will be an absolute unique list based upon their user's requirements. The good news is, there is a solution out there for you.

Migrating Shortcuts - Why Bother?

2009-04-03T10:53:00.005-05:00

Bob Spurzem over at Ferris Research this morning discussed some key issues and points to consider when performing archive migrations. As the leader in the archive migration market, our team has focused a lot of effort into dealing with shortcuts. (http://www.ferris.com/2009/04/03/email-archive-migration-plan-for-stubbing/)

One can argue "You should not use shortcuts anyway"

Sure, but go tell that to your user community that has 1000's if not 10,000's of shortcuts in their Exchange mailbox and tell them that they are going to go away because it is not good practice to have them. That should go over very well. Some of the user archives that we have migrated had over 60,000 shortcuts in a single mailbox. Not exactly the easiest thing to transition users from using.

So this brings up a key point in selecting an archive migration application. Simply being able to move the archived content from one platform to another is not enough. The absolute must is to ensure that all data is migrated and that end users are not impacted. Users typically resist change, even if they are told it will be good change. Making sure how they get access to their data stays consistent is an absolute.

So why bother migrating shortcuts? Well, if you don't, just be ready for the user revolt...

2009 - Year for Change

2009-01-09T11:14:00.003-06:00

"The year of Change" seems to be everyone's motto this year. What amazes me is that people are claiming this to be the latest and greatest idea ever. Well isn't change something that occurs everyday? Isn't change something that should be occruing in your business everyday? Isn't change the only thing guaranteed not to change?

As I've been writing the annual "State of Procedo" address for our internal staff this past week, I looked back on the address from a year ago. In that was our "year of change" commentary. Focusing not only on the good points of the previous year, but how we can make the upcoming year that much better learning from our past mistakes that surrounded the negative items from the previous year.

It will be yet again the common theme for this year's address. You can only advance if you are able to learn from your past mistakes and leverage that going forward to make the change a positive change going forward.

Looking back wasn't 2008 a year of amazing change as well? The stock market CHANGED a LOT in 2008, but people are not jumping up and down excited for how it changed. The employment markets have changed, those standing in the unemployment lines and the stock market are not cheering this either.

So let's make sure when we focus on "the year of change" that we're actually focusing on positive and proper change to move forward and advance. Just like our customers are always changing their archive applications or storage, we move their Data Forward, the goal for 2009 has to be to have a Positive Year of Change, not just another 2008.

Change is inevitable, you must work to make it positive change, to move forward, to advance....

2009 - Walk to cure diabetes...

2009-01-07T01:14:00.004-06:00

I normally don't post too many personal items, however as I mentioned in an earlier post regarding how technology should be advancing the betterment of the cause that it is working towards. We're at the time of year that the Juvenille Diabetes Research Foundation holds its Walk for a Cure at the Mall of America. As mentioned in my earlier post, my daughter Destin was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in October of 2006. We have been participating in the walk and fund-raising activites since her diagnosis.

Type 1, or juvenile, diabetes, is a devastating, often deadly disease that affects millions of people--a large and growing percentage of them children. Many people think type 1 diabetes can be controlled by insulin. While insulin does keep people with type 1 diabetes alive, it is NOT a cure. Aside from the daily challenges of living with type 1 diabetes, there are many severe, often fatal, complications caused by the disease.

The good news, though, is that a cure for type 1 diabetes is within reach. In fact, JDRF funding and leadership is associated with most major scientific breakthroughs in type 1 diabetes research to date. And JDRF funds a major portion of all type 1 diabetes research worldwide, more than any other charity.

On a personal note, an update on Destin. We continue with our day to day challenges living with Type 1 Diabetes, but as of this past summer, life with Diabetes did change and did become quite a bit more manageable. As I previously posted Destin decided she was finally ready for the insulin pump, and we made the leap. Life has not been the same since. What amazing technology. She wears the OmniPod, which is a tubeless, wireless, remotely controlled disposable pump that she wears for 3 days at a time and changes. It's waterproof, and pretty much "kidproof", and has really freed her up to be a kid again in so many ways. Her numbers have been so much better as was her first A1C at her first quarterly checkup after starting the pump! The doctors couldn't have been happier with her progress!

With your help, life changing technologies and cures CAN be a reality. That is why we ask all of you for your help in donations as well as participation at the walk! My wife Liana and I have made it our personal goal to do what we can to allow our daughter to have a normal life and just "be a kid".

Please visit Destin's Walk Web page if you would like to donate online or see how close we are at reaching our goal:

http://walk.jdrf.org/walker.cfm?id=87239062

Follow this link to make a donation:

http://walk.jdrf.org/support.cfm?id=87239062

Thank You Everyone

Giving Thanks

2008-11-26T16:41:00.002-06:00

As Thanksgiving nears I wanted to thank all of our employees at Procedo. We have an incredible team from many different backgrounds providing products and solutions that are unique to the market. The team is what makes Procedo what we are today. We have come through many challenges and continually rising to accept the challenges and overcome them with solutions that not only has made Procedo a better company, but also enhances our products and our employees knowledge of the industry and our customers.

Thank you everyone. We've had an incredible year and are on target for an even better 2009.

Joe

Where did all of this data come from?

2008-11-25T11:12:00.002-06:00

In the world of current events, e-discovery is in yet another phase of growth. What our customers are starting to ask is "where did all this data come from?" and "What can we do to fix this mess?"

We have customers that have "identified" well over 100TB of potential data to be migrated into an e-discovery platform. What is even more amazing about these numbers is that they are estimates as the customers themselves have no clue how much data they actually have.

Others have guessed from 40-100 TB. This is not only a large amount of data, but it is a massive variance in what might actually be there. Customers are asking us to get their data in an archive as quickly as possible. They know there are going to be regulations coming that will force them to either retain this data, or purge it in a manner that provides a chain of custody of this activity.

We have the ability to not only discover this data, but inventory every message. Even if all of this 100TB of data is outside the customer's retention policy limits, we will mark it as such during the purging process.

Customers archived content is growing at incredible amounts and we have seen this in terms of our average project size as well. In the past 18 months, our average project has increased over 7x. We expect to see this trend continue into 2009 and beyond. Customers are demanding that data is in a location that can be discovered and not roaming their network as a liability.

Election Results - Change is Coming...

2008-11-05T00:18:00.006-06:00

Today marks an incredible point in the history of our country. It is a day that our children and grandchildren will read about in the history books in school and ask us about it. While many people have great opinions one candidate vs. another, there are not many people in our country that will debate the need for change. That change has been needed. Our financial markets are changing and demanding more changes. Wall Street in the greatest sense doesn't exist as it did three months ago and the massive mortgage companies no longer exist.

Change was the focus on the race and no matter who was elected, change was promised. Change was needed and change in the eyes of the world is on its way. The one thing that I have always shared with my classes in the past and all of our employees is that the only thing guaranteed to not change is that there will always be change. If we or our products don't change, they will die. Change is required to grow and advance forward.

The world view of the United States of America has instantly been changed, the blogs on the BBC site are filled with comments from people around the globe stating how their view of the USA has instantly been changed and they are looking forward to seeing the change that has been promised. A new face is being embraced by the world at the moments after the election was declared.

McCain's speech tonight was probably the best of his entire campaign and was focused around exactly what we need to work on; Working together to better our country as one country working to right the ship. He is still committed to working for our country and working for his new President.

Obama's speech started slower than I was expecting from him but he finished strong with a historic speech that will be spoken about for years to come. He spoke to everyone about coming together as one and making changes that benefit everyone in our nation. The gracious commanding speech was one that many will be replaying on YouTube and the like for years to come.

No matter what you were hoping the outcome was, one thing is for sure; we're going to get change. We're going to be viewed better by the world and we have to come together and work as one country to create the stability and growth that we've lost the past few years.

Regardless of what your party affiliation is if any, no matter who you voted for, being a part of history is always amazing and today history was made. Congratulations to Senator McCain for fighting for what you believe in and to President-Elect Obama, the world and our country are hoping this historic day is followed by years of positive change for the betterment of everyone in our country.

Current Market Conditions

2008-10-16T09:50:00.006-05:00

The current market conditions are certainly creating many challenges for all of us. Whether it is a reduction in work force at your employer or trying to buy a new car. GMAC's announcement that they will only approve those with a FICO score over 700, will limit who can gain financing to the vast majority of the public in today's world. Yet they wonder why they can't sell cars ;)

When people ask me how we're "weathering the storm" and how we're adjusting to the "new market", I tell them the truth. We're hiring people, we're expediting our new product version releases and we're going to have our largest quarter in the history of the company.

To some this is shocking, to others who know the market we are in or in similar markets, they explain that they are doing the same and seeing the same growth potential. In the world of archiving, the data exists for a reason. It exists solely for the function of being able to access it in the future.

What the market is discovering is that their existing applications and storage platforms are unable to retrieve the data in either a fast enough time frame or the fact that some applications are failing all together. Here is the issue. The main function these applications are to provide, they can not. Procedo re-enables our customers to be able to discover this data by migrating it from one archive platform to another in a guaranteed method.

In the times of increased oversight, mergers & acquisitions, takeovers, shareholder lawsuits; the one key item for all of these will be a need for e-discovery solutions. Being able to move the data forward into applications, storage or even SaaS providers that can produce the data on demand as needed will be critical for these companies and exactly what Procedo does. We enable these companies to respond to the demands that are being placed on them in terms of their archived data.

Back to School - Making Progress

2008-09-16T01:47:00.007-05:00

As my daughter is back in school it has made me think about how the progress of learning and technology map to one another. In the world of school, each year our kids head back in September to the place of learning. Each September they "graduate" to the next grade level in school and start to learn more new things and more complex items regarding subjects they have already learned a base knowledge of. What would happen if each year our kids headed back to school and simply repeated the same year over and over again for 12 years. One thing is for sure is that they'd be able to get done with their Math Facts in about 4 seconds and they could add 4+5 amazingly well. But what about algebra, geometry, chemistry, world history, etc. Our kids would never get a chance to learn more and grow.

So why is it that once we deploy a technology we think we're set for life? Why is it that we're not looking foward to advancing the technology we just deployed. Shouldn't we be "heading back to school in September" looking at new classes to take to better our existing technology? In the world of Archiving, products change constantly and most companies new/updated releases close to once a year. Just because you picked "the best" platform 3 years ago, doesn't mean it's the best platform today.

In today's world, our kid's can't repeat the same grade over and over again thanks to our politicians and the whole "no child left behind act", so don't be that one kid left behind in your business leaving your archive technology behind.

Technology - Has it bettered your life?

2008-07-29T03:52:00.007-05:00

I typically don't write too much about what is going on in my personal life. However, I wanted to touch on something that happened this past week. For those that know me well, they know my daughter is diabetic. She was diagnosed as Type I Diabetic shortly after her 5th birthday. What this means is that she is insulin dependent and has been receiving between 6-10 shots of insulin a day since. She's an amazing person and has handled this so well I'm nothing short of amazed and proud of her.

Through the amazing power of Disney (yes, I'm still talking about medical innovation here :), our daughter learned from her Grandma that Nick Jonas from the Jonas Brothers was recently diagnosed and on a newer diabetes pump called the OmniPod, by Insulet. It is a self contained pump that is WIRELESS and TUBELESS! Having experienced the Jonas Brothers live in concert along with Hanna Montana (her first concert, 20k screaming kids, her crazy dad took her) it was clear that these were some of the first people in her life that she was in awe of. Anything the Jonas Brothers thought was cool, certainly she thought it was cool too.

After much research by myself and my wife, On Friday July 25th 2008, technology changed our daughter's life. NO MORE SHOTS!!!! She programs in her insulin dose into a wireless remote and it sends the dosage requirements to the pod and a few seconds later, her dose is done. It has already changed her life and it's only been 3 days.

This really got me thinking, how has and how does technology make our lives better every day? Isn't that its purpose? We advance technology to make our lives and the lives around us better. So when you're contemplating new technology, make sure you ask yourself "is this going to make my life better?" If the answer is no, maybe you should be buying something that will. Or better yet, ask yourself if your current technology is making your life better. If it's not, maybe it's time to find some that will.

The Communication Archive

2008-07-09T00:56:00.011-05:00

Ever since humans have been communicating, we have been keeping communication archives. In prehistoric times, it was cave paintings, to the Bible to the Quran, etc. Ever since we have been able to keep a record in some form of written mechanism, we have technically been archiving this data for not only the current generation, but future generations ability to look back on earlier times.

As we continue to evolve in terms of how we communicate and the technology that surrounds us, we 'Archive' in new ways. The electronic archive. Some people feel as though we've changed the world in terms of this new concept called "archiving." Technology is merely giving us a new place to store our communication archives. It's not on the side of a stone, but within a little black box on a shiny metal round disk.

From the beginning of "Modern History", we have been able to trace back historical records through written notes of historical events, "archives." Now imagine the world 500 years into the future. What are historians going to be able to search through to create history books? Will the "electornic age" become the second coming of the "dark ages" because nobody will be able to figure out why we didn't keep written records of events? Historians will find these little metal boxes with shiny round disks in them and have no idea where all of our paper is.

Maybe we can't find much written history from the original dark ages because they already had email archives and we just can't figure out how to read them or where they were stored? :)

When chosing a new archive solution, keep in mind how you will adapt your current archive and even the next version of your archive. When implementing your new archive, don't forget about your old data. Keeping your archived data in the most current format will allow for easier transitions and migrations in the future and keeping future historians with something they can read and understand in 500 years.

Don't let this become the second dark age in history, keep your archived data current.

Travel Rant

2008-07-08T17:03:00.004-05:00

On a recent trip back from San Francisco, I had an incident that happened to me that makes me question the airline industry even more.

I was the 4th person to board the plane on the red-eye back to Minneapolis. Two of the women in front of me in line made it through just fine. The 3rd, was called out of line as the system came up "red" and that she needed a paper ticket. Even though she clearly had a printout of her boarding pass already. As i get into my seat I can hear the two women behind me (first two on the plane) chatting. Finally as one sits down, the other asks "I'm in 6a, where are you?" - "Well, I'm in 6a." OH NO, they double booked us!

One of these women then turns to the lead attendant and tells him "we're both in 6a". He proceeds to tell her, "well, you will need to go back up to the gate agent, as there are only 4 flight attendants on the plane and that is the FAA minimum once passengers are on board. We're not allowed to leave the plane."

With this information, they both decide to sit down and wait, for what I don't know. Another flight attendant walks by "Ma'am, we're both in 6a." "I'm sorry ladies, you'll need to check with the gate agent as there are only 4............." With this SAME information, they both again decide to sit down and wait. In the meantime, 6B shows up. "I"m in 6B." "Well, we're both in 6a." and the don't move. So 6B is stuck standing while they wait.

Now the co-pilot comes walking by, "Excuse me sir, we're both in 6a." Now, don't you think this gentleman has better things to do with his time then resolve a seat issue since he's about to fly a couple hundred people across the country? "I have to go get the passenger list anyway right now, I'll stop back down when I have it so we can figure out what's going on." "Oh, thank you sir."

In the meantime, the lead attendant gets on the overhead and says the usual "Welcome to flight xxx service from San Francisco to the Minneapolis, St. Paul airport. Full flight, put your bags in right, blah blah blah.... and again, this is flight xxx service from San Francisco to Minneapolis, enjoy your flight."

Finally as the co-pilot boards the plane, "OK, which one of you is Mary?" "OK, great, you're in 6a. Can I see your boarding pass ma'am?" "Sure, it's right here!" "Well Jane, you're on the wrong plane, you're going to Detroit and this flight is going to Minneapolis." "OH MY GOSH, I can't believe I did that, is that plane still here? Where is it boarding from? Oh, I'm sorry!!!"

So the issues that bother me about this entire scenario are as follows:

- 3 members of the flight crew were approached by these women and not one of them looked at both of their boarding passes to verify that they were in the right seat or ON THE RIGHT PLANE!

- On this flight, only Platinum members were getting upgraded. So here are two women that fly in excess of 75,000 miles per year on one airline, and yet with all of their travels, she doesn't know enough to verify she's at the right gate or getting on the right plane?

- When the flight attentdant comes on and painfully announces that the plane is going to Minneapolis more than twice, does it not register that you're not going to Minneapolis?

- The biggest issue of all is how in the world did they let her get on the plane in the first place? 2 of the first 4 people on the plane had the same seat assignment and they let them both on?

- What's the point of having the strict security if you can just present your boarding pass to get on any flight from the same airline?

- Shouldn't these boarding system verify the flight is actually the one they are boarding?

Archive Retention Policies - Use Them

2008-06-23T01:49:00.007-05:00

So one of my biggest pet peeves in the archiving space is retention policies. This is probably in the top 10 requirements of any major firm looking to deploy an archive today. They require the ability to set a single or multiple retention policies for their data. So my question to virtually any customer that I've ever spoken to is this. WHY ARE YOU NOT DELETING DATA???

I've spoken at a few different conferences over the past few years and one of the items I like to get feedback on is in regard to retention policy adherence. The first question that I'll ask is "how many of you have an email archive deployed and have retention policies set on your data". Being that these conferences are about archiving, virtually everyone raises their hands. Now brings the second and guilt-ridden question, "how many of you have data that is OLDER than the retention policy?" The frustration starts to brew when all of the hands stay up from the first question. Why insist on retention policies if you don't use them?

The last time I presented these questions was before a group of 75 CIO's. These people know they have data that is currently not being properly managed. That is what the application and archive storage is for. Retention policy adherence is something that needs to be adhered to more. If there is a policy, follow it. If you decide you're not sure how long you're going to need your data, pick a timeframe of X and ALSO have your policy state that it will be up for review on that date. If you need to extend the date out again, you now have that ability to do so and the data won't become lost in a graveyard waiting for someone to dig it up.

When I was at a client site a few years back, one of their senior directors came up to me with two backup tapes in his hand. He looked at me and said, "can you recover this by tomorrow?" I honestly had never seen that kind of tape in my life. I looked at him and actually laughed. My first response back was, "WHY do you still have this tape, is there anything on it?" All he knew was that there was a post-it with the label "1997 - Email Data". This company had a 3 year retention policy at the time. So clearly I assumed the tape was headed to be destroyed since it was 2004. Much to my disbelief, it was headed back to the storage area in case they needed it. This is a classic example of what not to do.

From our experiences working with customers across all verticals and across the globe, the one thing that courts are looking for is adherence to whatever policy you have. If you have data that is 10 years old, but for some reason destroyed data exactly at 7 years, the court assumes you are hiding something. If your policy is to only keep data 7 years, then get rid of the 10 year old data.

Archive Retention Policies are there for many great reasons. Abide by them and use them. Be consistent.

Transformation of Email Archiving

2008-06-20T21:43:00.005-05:00

I started my technology career around the time Microsoft Mail was being introduced and messages were being sent to other employees just to see "did you really get that"? After this amazing addition of technology happened, the company I worked for added a 'dial-up gateway' where messages were sent over this magical thing called the Internet, it queued messages up on the server and dialed up and processed these messages, checked to see if any were destined for its users and then hung up, only to do the task again at a blazing speed of 14.4 kbps in another 3o minutes.

Email archiving in its rawest form has been around as long as the email environmnets have existed. Users have saved emails into some form of a personal archive, corporations have saved email on tape, made duplicate copies, or some other form of application to secure and store email longer than it was perhaps "intended" to be around. Regardless, it is.

Some of the top leading email archive applications today, have existed for over 10 years. Email archiving is not a new fad that is simply going to go away. It has become a major requirement for messaging infrastructures and an expectation to be deployed in the top Fortune 5000+ companies whether they are a financial industry regulated company or not. The latest analyst reports indicate that there are over 25,000 deployments of enterprise email archives in the world and is still one of the fastest growing market segments for enterprise software and storage.

So if email archiving is nothing "new" and is deployed in the top accounts across the globe, how can it be transforming. The transformation comes from the constant change in the market; archiving vendors get acquired: OTG to Legato to EMC, KVS to Veritas to Symantec, Educom to Zantaz to Atonomy, Persist (spun off from Zantaz) to HP, and more. These are some of the top deployed archiving applications in the world and they are changing ownership, adding features and improving their products. So if the vendors are constantly making changes, how could it be assumed that customers would not?

End users are constantly changing their minds about what they want and need. Maybe it's because a really good sales person convinced them they need their product, or they are sick of supporting an end user that always complains about some feature not working or that simply does not exist within their current product. So what are these customers doing? They are making changes. They are changing their archiving applications.

These changes that we are seeing in the market is nothing new for technology. As products and solutions improve, customers want their environment to improve as well. Customers make changes for all reasons good and bad; cost, features, functions, storage management, political, 'cause there is a cool button' and more.

The email archiving market is transforming. It's transforming from a rich green field of opportunities that all you had to do was throw a few lawn darts and wherever they landed was your next million dollar archiving sale. To today where the opportunities exist, but the field is already full of paying customers on competitive platforms. Tomorrow's customers were the competitor's customer 1,3,5 years ago. Opportunity exists in these 25,000+ accounts for vendors to sell them their solution. Customers have already determined that they need an archiving product. Vendors just need to convince the customers that their product is best for them now and that migrating the data will magically happen.

End users need to ask themselves if their product is the best for them. If not, now is the time to determine which product is. We've proven that these archives are not going away anytime soon. The archive market is transforming. Is your vendor helping you get to where you want to be?