by Joe Gleinser
13. April 2010 16:54
More and more we are being asked about email archival and encryption solutions. For most businesses compliance with SAS 70, HIPAA or other standards drives this need. Recently GCS has seen several of our clients contractually obligated to implement these systems to do business with the Fortune 1000. Whatever the cause email archival and encryption are technologies that are rapidly becoming commonplace.
As with many technologies today there are two basic strategies to address these needs. The first strategy is an on-premise system. A business will procure archival software, encryption software (or appliance) and storage adjacent to their email systems. Archival systems start at about $10k including the software, storage and deployment. Symantec Backup Exec 2010 offers archival solutions integrated to your standard data backup. Low cost NAS devices make ideal archival targets that minimize cost per GB of storage. GCS has grown fond of the Synology product line that includes integrated site-to-site replication technology.
Email encryption is nothing new. This blogger, and many readers, may remember installing PGP Email Encryption after blowing through Stephenson's Cryptonomicon at a tender age. That cumbersome implementation has been replaced with appliances that encrypt email based on policy including recipient domains, keyword matching, email tagging and more. Cisco's Ironport, ZixCorp, and Voltage offer appliance/gateway solutions. These devices can be quite a bit more expensive than archival systems with many businesses looking at investments of $50k or more.
If cash flow and ease of management is a concern, hosted/cloud options exist for both archival and encryption. Microsoft and Google both offer hosted email filtering (virus and spam), archival and encryption. With Microsoft's Hosted Exchange Filtering you can get email filtering and archival for about $75 per user per year. Many of the appliance vendors offer hosted solutions as well. Hometown-boys-now-Dell-division MessageOne delivers an archival and continuity solution that is widely acclaimed.