Role of Archiving and Destructive Retention Policies

Given the role and popularity of e-mail in business today, companies are faced with a significant dilemma of how to balance e-mail security with storage. According to a new white paper from ArcMail Technology, entitled "e-mail Archiving vs. Destructive Retention Policies," the dilemma is forcing companies to question if and when is it more appropriate to archive e-mail versus implement a destructive retention policy that deletes e-mail after a specified length of time. While there are several arguments for destructive retention policies, ultimately, the threat of litigation, industry and government compliance regulations and the challenge of maintaining employee productivity are driving more organizations to adopt e-mail archiving policies.

"For this paper, we focused on the three core arguments that advocates of destructive retention continue to use to support the practice of simply deleting e-mails, and the three core arguments why archiving is a better solution," said Todd Gates, chief executive officer of ArcMail Technology. "While the dilemma between security and storage is a major concern for companies, it is being eclipsed by the importance of companies to protect themselves in the event of litigation, and to ensure that they continue to comply with government and industry regulations. In the end, destructive e-mail retention policies are dangerous for today's businesses."

The white paper discusses three arguments advocates use for practicing destructive retention policies:

• Change from the traditional retention policies -- Change can be difficult, especially within organizations that have entrenched policies or limited technology capabilities.
• Storage/Data Overload -- Deleting e-mails can help reduce the management requirements and storage strain on IT departments.
• Eliminate the potential threat of data loss/leakage - Data leaks can be very expensive and by deleting the e-mails, companies can reduce the threat.
  

While advocates of destructive retention policies may have security and storage concerns, e-mail plays a central role in communications and the courts have deemed e-mail to be business records. As a result, it must be preserved.

"While destructive retention policies certainly help to address the security/storage dilemma, the regularly scheduled destruction of e-mails creates a variety of new challenges for companies that could cost them more than money," added Gates. "Advanced archiving policies and technology, such as ArcMail Defender, can help to temper any arguments for destructive retention policies while helping to support compliance, litigation and productivity arguments for e-mail archiving."