Email Archive Appliance

An email archive appliance used to be the go to choice for effective email archiving, however this has now changed and there is a great variety of email archiving solutions available now. It pays to assess each choice to determine which is best and suitable most meets the requirements of your organization.

You will find 4 choices readily available for archiving email to satisfy your compliance obligations:

A committed, physical email archiving server or appliance
Email archiving software
A cloud based email archiving service
A hybrid solution combining 2 or even much more of the above

A contact archiving appliance is among the simplest email archiving options. You purchase an actual appliance which functions as a standalone unit for email archiving and it’s housed alongside your servers on premises. The sole reason for the equipment is archiving emails. With a contact archiving appliance there’s a one-time price to purchase the machine, along with continuous maintenance expenses. Physical email archiving electrical devices are robust products, but backups continue to be needed in case of device failure. You’d thus have to furthermore factor in the backup storage bill.

An alternative option would be using a virtual appliance. A virtual system is provided as a purpose built virtual option that’s ready and pre-configured to deploy in the virtual environment on HyperV or VMware. Both email archiving appliance choices are ready and pre-configured being deployed. Getting put in place requires around an hour, and also you are able to typically get everything set up in just one morning.

Virtual and physical appliances are very easy to use and deploy, simple to secure, and will give you peace of mind as your vital email information will be kept in house. If ever there’s an issue, you are going to have access to the appliance. Security is simple, as the equipment could be set up to just be accessible from inside your organization’s networking and can be shielded by your organization’s firewall.

Cloud email archiving is fast-becoming the standard required by companies. With a cloud based archive, all archiving happens in the solution and the cloud is offered as a service. Your service provider is going to provide the software program, databases, then cloud storage and can guarantee the archive is attached and also backed up. There’ll be no maintenance requirements or even associated expenses with a cloud based archiving solution.

Cloud-based archiving will be the simplest answer and there’s little in terms of upfront costs. You simply pay for the amount of owners as a monthly cost. It’s a worry-free service as things are supplied for you. Installation is an easy and quick process that typically takes under an hour. Cloud-based archiving may be more cost effective than an email archiving appliance or maybe software solution, particularly for reasonable to moderate sized organizations.

Protection can be an issue, as you’ll be storing the archive in the cloud – on someone else’s servers. While at this time there are genuine fears about storing information in the cloud, cloud based email archiving is offered as a program, so the service provider will assure your archive is secured, email data are encrypted, so the archive is supported upwards easily and it is usually available, even in case the email service of yours is printed. With cloud based email archiving, protection is not an issue.

FAQs

How long must HIPAA documentation be retained?

HIPAA documentation, such as policies and procedures and training records, must be retained for a minimum period of 6 years from the date of creation or the date when those documents were last in use, whichever is greater. When the retention period ends, data must be securely destroyed to prevent reconstitution and recovery.

Is it possible to automate email archiving and data deletion?

The easiest way to archive emails and comply with data retention requirements is to use a cloud-based software-as-a-service solution. These solutions allow policies to be set that will automate the process of archiving emails and deleting email data when the retention period is over. SaaS email archiving solutions are set-and-forget solutions.

Can employees access their own email archives?

Most email archiving solutions can be configured to allow employees to access their own archives from their mail client by adding a plugin. These solutions are best as it means employees will not bother the IT helpdesk if they accidentally delete an email from their inbox. You should ensure that employees cannot delete emails from the archive and that your chosen solution protects against tampering with emails.

Is cloud email archiving secure?

IT teams may prefer to store data on-premises as they believe it is easier to secure; however, cloud email archives can be just as secure as on-premises, if not more secure provided they include end-to-end encryption, data replication across multiple data centers, and customer archives are automatically backed up.

Are all email archiving services HIPAA-compliant?

No. In order to be HIPAA-compliant, technical, physical, and administrative safeguards must be implemented to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of email archives, service providers must protect against reasonably anticipated threats, they must make sure their workforce is HIPAA compliant, and must sign a business associate agreement.