Archiving E-mail Effectively
| May 9, 2008 |  View for printing |
The White House's recent problems archiving e-mail could be solved by emerging technologies.
Losing e-mail can be a serious problem for both the public and private sector. Recently, the White House came under fire for failing to keep archives of its e-mail, even after the Clinton Administration instituted an archiving system due to a similar scandal. The Bush Administration set aside the existing archiving system as part of a move from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange, and its current system reportedly relies on a combination of backup tapes and hand sorting. Earlier this week, according to the Washington Post, court documents revealed that the White House has not been able to find e-mails sent during a period in 2003 that encompasses the Iraq invasion.
E-mail can be hard to archive effectively because it gets sent in such vast quantities, which makes it difficult to store in a form that's easy to search and demonstrably tamper proof. Both of these requirements are particularly important for e-mail that's necessary for court cases and other legal situations. Fortunately, experts say that there are many good technologies for proper e-mail archiving and that the capabilities have only gotten better in recent years.
By Erica Naone
Full Story: http://www.technologyreview.com/Bizt ... id=1063&a=f 
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