Riverbank It management

E-mail keeps piling into your business, and your e-mail database keeps on growing. There is a hidden cost to this, which only reveals itself when the database hits its limit or your disk is full. At that point you wish you had been managing your e-mail all along. You realise that even a large server system needs management, and that as new data comes into your organisation so old data must move out of it. E-mail archiving is the solution.

Individual archiving

You can manage e-mail archiving on an individual basis using the facilities built into Outlook. This will create individual archive files. Because the user can choose where to put these archive files, they could be stored on local computer disks or anywhere on your network.

This process might make your main e-mail database smaller, but it does not help your overall network management. The lack of central management means that those archived e-mails are as good as lost.

Centrally managed archive

The better solution is to have a centrally managed e-mail archive. The benefits you get are:

• You know where all e-mails are, so you can retrieve any you need
• It can be backed up and protected
• The system can be fully automated
• It is a long-term solution

These systems are generally additional pieces of software that link into your Exchange e-mail database. They move e-mail out of the database into their archive according to rules you set up.

To comply with regulations many companies now have to maintain a full e-mail archive, and keep it for a number of years. Because of this there are now several online services that provide a guaranteed mail archive. They intercept your e-mail traffic as it flows in and out of your business, and make a copy of every e-mail. So even if a user deletes an e-mail immediately it is received, you still have a copy of it in the online archive.

Need help?

If you are struggling with the volume of e-mail in your business and you need help to manage it, organise it or archive it, contact Riverbank. Call us on 01844 278036 or e-mail help@riverbank.co.uk.