Vendors add to e-mail storage options

Federal regulations, fines spurring faster adoption of archiving technologies

New software from Symantec and Mimosa Systems, along with changes to the federal court system's rules of civil procedure, could encourage more customers who routinely are at risk of being the target of litigation to archive e-mail and documents.

Both companies this week are expected to roll out software that lets IT administrators and legal counsel search for and retrieve e-mails, documents and spreadsheets required in federal civil and criminal proceedings. This software's popularity has been increasing as customers see the million-dollar penalties levied against companies such as Morgan Stanley for deleting or failing to archive e-mail.

Federal rules 26 and 34 define what constitutes electronically stored information. Rule 37 - which goes into effect Dec. 1 - calls for a safe-harbor provision ensuring sanctions cannot be imposed for material (e-mails, documents, spreadsheets and backup data) deleted as part of a routine, good-faith operation.

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New software from Symantec and Mimosa Systems, along with changes to the federal court system's rules of civil procedure, could encourage more customers who routinely are at risk of being the target of litigation to archive e-mail and documents.

Both companies this week are expected to roll out software that lets IT administrators and legal counsel search for and retrieve e-mails, documents and spreadsheets required in federal civil and criminal proceedings. This software's popularity has been increasing as customers see the million-dollar penalties levied against companies such as Morgan Stanley for deleting or failing to archive e-mail.

Federal rules 26 and 34 define what constitutes electronically stored information. Rule 37 - which goes into effect Dec. 1 - calls for a safe-harbor provision ensuring sanctions cannot be imposed for material (e-mails, documents, spreadsheets and backup data) deleted as part of a routine, good-faith operation.

"These rules cover anyone who has the misfortune to be involved in litigation in the federal courts," says Thomas Allman, senior counsel for Mayer Brown Row & Maw in Chicago and co-author of Rule 37. "Some of the sources of recovering information - such as backup tapes - require a considerable amount of cost and burden to put them in shape to be searched." Allman says these sources of information include hundreds of pieces of data.

Symantec is set to introduce Enterprise Vault Discovery Accelerator 6.0, software that lets IT or legal counsel search documents and e-mail and export their contents. This version has several new features, among them the ability to search across multiple sites, hold information for pending or active investigations, and export files to other formats, such as Exchange .PST. The company also announced a partnership with RenewData to handle the retrieval of information from legacy magnetic tapes. Enterprise Vault Discovery Accelerator 6.0 costs about $18,200.

Mimosa Systems plans to unveil legal-discovery and compliance modules for its e-mail archiving and continuous data protection software. NearPoint for Microsoft Exchange Server 2.0 includes the NearPoint eDiscovery Option e-mail search, which can be used for regulatory compliance and discovery of e-mails required by the courts. The NearPoint Compliance Storage Option is integrated with tamperproof media, such as content-addressable storage and write once, read many times (WORM) drives, to ensure record-level retention and disposition of e-mail and attachments. Version 2.0 also enables the creation of a thread of conversations and messages for litigation support and investigations, and includes a workflow process that lets discovery teams search, hold, review, tag and export results. NearPoint for Microsoft Exchange Server starts at $10,000 for 100 mailboxes. n

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