George needs an archive!

I thought that the following article from the AP last week was an interesting insight to the fact that even our government still does not understand the importance of Archiving:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WHITE_HOUSE_E_MAIL?SITE=AZMES&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

The White House is missing 225 days of email. They are accepting bids for a recovery process that will include 35,000 disaster recovery tapes. 35,000!!! As a former Exchange administrator and as some of you are as well we can all understand the time it takes to restore 10 tapes let alone 35,000. I am sure that the bids for this project will be quite large as the labor involved will be high.

This should be a lesson to all those out there still using backup tapes for recovery or for your archiving solution. If an archiving solution was in place at the White House there would be no need to restore backup tapes in an effort to find emails that are being requested. The information could be easily searched for from the archive and exported in a readable format or even recovered as individual messages.

I think that the tape backup era is coming to a close. With so many different solutions on the market that now offer better performance than tape I can’t imagine anyone sticking with tape as a medium to store data for disaster recovery. Take Microsoft’s DPM for example. Although they have the option to store data on tape they also have the option to store online snapshots of the Exchange email system for quick disk-based recovery in the event of a disaster. There are also a number of other storage vendors on the market using a snapshot technology to backup Exchange and other email systems. As the cost of storage decreases the popularity of these disk-based backup systems is increasing.

Using a disk-based backup system in combination with an Archive would mean that organizations no longer need to rely on tape backup for their email systems. The disk-based backup can be used for near term recovery (under 1 year) and the archive for longer term recovery. Information over 1 year old is typically only requested for discovery purposes. Most users would not make requests for restore of their email if they have not accessed it in a year.

It will be interesting (and painful) to see how much this process might cost our government. As you and I both know it is not the government that will be paying. It will be us with our tax dollars.

George – Please buy an archiving system!

Technorati Tags:
Email Archiving, eDiscovery, White House Missing Email, Tape Backup, Microsoft DPM, Snapshots, Disk-based Backup

Bigfoot exists, the world is flat, and executives are still concerned about eDiscovery!

One out of three of these are confirmed. You decide which…

An article from the National Law journal states that 2 out of 5 executives are still bothered by electronic discovery. The article references a survey by Deloitte Financial Advisory Services of more than 520 executives from banking, securities, financial services, and technology industries. Here are some interesting data points from the survey:

• 17.5% of respondents said they were not ready to handle eDiscovery requests


• 11.8% reported no specific policies for data retention or destruction


• 47.5% worried about the cost of discovering data in their organization


• 16.3% feared court sanctions from failure to respond to discovery requests


• 12.9% worried about meeting court deadlines

This survey tells me that executives either through fear of the unknown or lack of budget are still not adequately prepared for an eDiscovery request. Being proactive about eDiscovery by installing an archiving system, mapping the data in your environment, and testing the plan you have in place will greatly reduce the anxiety these executives are feeling.

If they are not worried about eDiscovery then they must certainly be worried about Bigfoot. This week Fox News reported that a couple of guys from Georgia found the body of a Bigfoot. I used to never worry about a Bigfoot coming out from the woods and assaulting me but now I am not so sure. You will have to look for yourself and decide (there are pictures here). I myself can’t wait for the press conference this morning.

I also used to never worry about falling off the face of the earth while circumnavigating the globe but apparently that is still called into question as well. I came across a website this week for a group (they call themselves the Flat Earth Society) that believes the earth is flat. They even have theories about why the earth is flat, why most don’t know it and have been lied to, and how travel can happen with a flat earth. It is interesting to look at if you have some extra time on your hands.

I am off to the store now to stock up on supplies to protect myself from the Bigfoot. I know that garlic is used for vampires but what keeps a sasquatch away? :)

Technorati Tags:
eDiscovery, Archiving, Email Archiving, Bigfoot, Flat Earth Society

It hurts to say it... My wife was right!

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard my wife say “pull over and ask for directions” or “it wouldn’t kill you to look at a map once in a while”. I hate to say it but she is right (don’t tell my wife I said that). Or at least she is right when it comes to data discovery.

Correctly mapping the data that exists in your organization is a great step towards a pro-active eDiscovery plan. You can’t know how to get the data in a timely manner if you don’t know where it exists and you can’t stop and ask anyone for directions once that legal request comes in. Proactively planning by creating a map that shows where the data exists, what type of data it is, and how you can access that data will go a long way in shortening the time to your final destination of providing the data requested.

According to an article in the August 2008 issue of Inside Counsel, creating an effective data map starts with a meeting with IT. They might already have a map for storage purposes and it can be expanded to contain the additional information needed for eDiscovery. It is also recommended to meet with the owners of the data. They will be able to tell you what type of data is contained in their system and of what value it is to the organization.

Creating a data map can be a big task for a large organization. One solution is to reduce the number of places that you might need to go to retrieve data. One way to do that is through an effective archiving solution. By storing multiple data types (email, files, SharePoint, IM, etc) in a single repository you reduce the number of data stores you need to visit to discover data. This greatly simplifies the legal hold process and reduces the time to fulfill requests.

After you have an effective data map in place it is also important to practice. Create a legal request for yourself and see how long it takes to produce results. It will ensure that the data map that you have created is useful and accurate. It will also keep your wife from saying “can’t you find out where you are going before you start driving?” or “Two words: Google Maps”.

Technorati Tags:
eDiscovery, Email Archiving, Data Mapping