Cloud Email

With providers such as Microsoft, Google and Cisco now offering cloud-based email solutions, many organizations are taking a closer look at moving their email to the cloud to help cut costs and minimize administration headaches. However, not surprisingly, many IT professionals currently question the security and reliability of cloud-based email and are hesitant to move a mission-critical application like email to a hosted infrastructure.

For many companies, a limited number of archiving solutions are now playing a critical role in helping them take their first step into the cloud. The right archiving solution can help an organization:

• Meet legal and compliance requirements by ensuring copies of messages and attachments are securely stored in a central online repository that is easily accessible and searchable – independent of the primary email system
• Ensure continued end-user access to messages when the primary email system (on-premise or cloud-based) goes down (referred to as email continuity)
• Simplify the migration path from on-premise email to cloud-based email by maintaining copies of all messages and making them accessible via the mail client (Outlook, Notes), a secure web page, smartphone or tablet PC

In addition, a good third-party archiving solution ensures that organizations can take their emails with them no matter what email platform they select. Keep in mind that many archiving systems are not portable, so it is important to ask potential vendors what will happen to your archive if you switch email platforms, whether you decide to keep the system on-premise or move it to the cloud.