E-mail Archiving is a 10 to 20-year Decision

Your e-mail archiving solution should outlast pretty much any information solution you are currently using. The shelf life of this decision should be at least as long as the longest specified retention period in your e-mail policy.

Why? Because one of the fundamental principles of archiving is that archived data has no value when it can't be retrieved, and therefore retrieval from the archive must be assured no matter what. More simply, without easy retrieval, an archive is no longer an archive.

How do you implement an e-mail archiving solution that ensures retrieval?

The answer is two-fold:

1. Store archived messages in a vendor-neutral format, and
2. Avoid a retrieval system that hooks you to one vendor.

A solution that works with only one vendors messaging system (e.g., Exchange), can lock you to a single architecture for many years. You may not be able to even consider replacing your messaging system because the ability to retrieve archived mail is locked to one system. I don't know about you, but I hate not having options.

Without a doubt, Microsoft holds the lion share of the messaging market. Lately however, we are beginning to see many new e-mail options e.g., open source, LinuxMail, All-in-one small business servers, etc. These alternatives are particularly important for small-to-midsize organizations where the importance of following the market leader is less critical. Exchange gets better with each release but unfortunately, at least from what we can see in Exchange 2007, it also gets more complicated. Retaining the option to make a change is a good safe business practise.