Email archiving offsite hosted solution - how it works. How email traffic is captured to the Archive

Email / Messaging Servers such as Microsoft Exchange are generally operated by your Companys' I.T Department, or you may use an outsourced solution - such as "Hosted Exchange".

Whether you use in-house servers, hosted services or a combination of both, all incoming, internal and outgoing email are forwarded to, and captured by The Message Archiver, over a secured Internet connection.

If your company operates its own dedicated email servers (such as MS Exchange) a simple plug-in is provided to enable secure mail forwarding to happen.

*Note* This plugin requires zero system downtime and there is no software to install.

The Message Archiver then serialises, indexes, time-dates and duplicates all email to its database, with a true copy of each email concurrently stored on its primary, secondary and offsite storage systems.

The Message Archiver performs: a) Rules-Based Analysis; and b) File Storage Processing.

a) Rules-Based Analysis

b) File Storage Processing

1. Scanning is performed on email header, text body and attachments stripping all relevant text and metadata (data on data) from the email record.

Word.doc	Acrobat.pdf
Excel.xls	Web.html
Power Point	Text.txt

1. Write Verification Process ensures your email records are protected as they are first encrypted and then written to the Primary Online storage systems and the Secondary NOS Storage Robot. The processed email record is automatically compared with the original before the original is deleted (original is stored in a buffer for 72 hours), to verify the quality and accuracy of the storage media recording process.

2. Compliance Reviewer, integrated with the Message Archiver, uses custom rules configured by authorised Users to flag keywords and phrases contained within email and attachments. An audit trail and reviewer action log is created and archived.

2. File Encryption meets US National Security Agency (NSA) standards by using AES encryption algorithms and secondary RSA encryption algorithms before being stored. The encryption (and decryption) process is transparent to Users.

3. SPAM can be automatically eliminated from common database searches by the Message Archiver, through identifying common SPAM recognition tags placed in email headers by SPAM scanners.

3. Primary Online Storage systems preserve in real time, simultaneously with the Secondary Storage Robot, a permanent copy of all email archived in the Message Archiver using RAID discs with write-verification.

4. Database – all scanned text and metadata is serialised, time-dated and written to the Message Archiver’s database in real time.

4. Secondary storage (WORM) systems preserve a second copy of email to the Storage Robot, our 150 terabyte near-online storage (NOS) robotic tape libraries using dedicated WORM tapes and write-verification.

5. Lifecycle management of email including audit trails and administrator action logs, is complete once retention and disposal schedules are met, and audit reports are generated.

5. Offsite Storage with 24 hour tape rotation, securely archives a permanent copy of email stored on the Primary and Secondary Storage systems, for purposes of disaster recovery and long-term storage.