Email Backup Alone Is Not Enough
Emails are the number one tool of corporate communication. Therefore, they contain data related to the business. Increasing regulations regarding email compliance, e-Discovery, and other legislation require protected email archiving against tampering, while an IT security strategy requires backing up the email server. IT decision makers should ensure data protection is not overlooked during this process.
Email remains the most important communication tool within organizations, despite the increasing use of instant messaging and social collaboration tools. According to Radicati Group, 281.1 billion emails were sent and received worldwide each day in 2018. The international technology market research firm predicts that this number will rise to 319.6 billion by 2021. Considering these figures and the growing legal requirements for archiving business emails, it is highly logical for IT decision-makers to integrate email archiving into their strategic IT planning. The reason for this is that the increase in electronic correspondence results in large volumes of data that must be securely backed up and archived due to their relevance. When dealing with active global companies, IT decision-makers should not ignore the fact that regulations regarding email compliance vary from country to country.
The Difference Between Backup and Archiving
IT auditors are on thin ice when they rely on this principle: "We already back up our email server, so there's no need for separate archiving." Backup does not replace email archiving! The fundamental idea behind every archiving process is to ensure that data can be retrieved and used even after a long period of time. Companies deal with invoices, price quotations, and support and appointment requests via email every day. In many countries, regulations require these emails to be fully accessible in their original, tamper-proof form for many years. This is exactly what email archiving does, and the key difference that sets it apart from a backup, which only aims to secure important data for a limited period and allow it to be restored when needed, is that external data storage devices cannot meet this requirement. Backups on external storage devices can be deleted immediately after emails are received or before the backup, and therefore cannot ensure that all emails are stored completely and securely. In contrast, a professional email archiving solution stores complete copies of all emails in a centralized archive to ensure the availability of any amount of data for many years. Measures such as hash values and encryption provide tamper-proof protection. In addition, users can access their emails in Microsoft Outlook and quickly search, find, and restore them using full-text indexing with seamless integration.
Ensure Data Protection
To avoid conflicts with any data protection regulations while archiving incoming and outgoing emails, we recommend that you prohibit the use of personal email or require employees to use only external email services. The policy can be written, for example, in the company's IT infrastructure guidelines, a contract, an employee consent form, or an individual employment contract.
Conclusion
Backups cannot replace archiving and email archiving cannot replace traditional backup tasks. Since archives also need to be backed up, there is no need to say that backups remain important. There's no escape from the fact that IT strategies of security-focused CIOs and IT supervisors must include email archiving in addition to backups to ensure fast and complete disaster recovery and avoid legal risks.