Email archiving or the systematic approach to saving and protecting data contained in email messages is a critical facet of business management today. With so much technology available and an equal number of service providers available, businesses must be clear about the prerequisites, what features matter, what works and what doesn’t, and why.
 
While SMS & WhatsApp messaging is gaining traction across emerging markets as the communication channel of choice, email remains a dominant force – fuelled by the growth of mobile-driven internet access. It is widely accepted that mobile is the main route to the Net in many emerging markets across Africa. This trend, along with the exponential growth of data and continuous need for heightened, effective security, has shifted the focus back to email. Email archiving, together with the influence of incremental increases in data, is a priority and is evolving.
 
In the past, companies often relied on end-users to maintain their own individual e-mail archives. But today businesses have had to adapt to the requirement for more agility and more immediate, streamlined management of communication resources.
 
Email evolution
 
The IT department would back up e-mail, but not in a manner that made messages seamlessly traceable. A few years ago, if a specific e-mail needed to be traced, it often took weeks to find it. With today’s compliance legislation and legal discovery rules though, it has become necessary for many IT departments to manage the entire company’s e-mail archiving in bulk so that specific messages can be located in minutes, not weeks.
 
Email archiving is an area of ICT that is seeing an increase in technology and in service providers, forcing businesses and potential users to be selective. When shopping around for an email archiving vendor, there are certain email archiving features you should look for when reviewing the offers.
 
First, the email archiving technology should feature a service that is compatible with all email platforms as well as one that can integrate with any server. This will ensure that the email system can properly be archived by the company offering its email archiving technology services.
 
Check Mailbox Size
 
It is ideal to choose an email archiving technology vendor, which offers unlimited mailbox size options to its customers.  As many businesses using email archiving technology are large corporations; and therefore have a mass quantity of prior emails to store, it is important to ascertain that there will be no mailbox size limitations. Categorisation of the email archiving is also extremely important, Integr8 explains, as is regulatory compliance and immediate email archiving technology.
 
Email Archiving
 
Every email sent and received should be immediately archived by the respective email archiving platform.  This will ensure that no message is missed; and filed away where & when it should have been.
 
Integr8 has differentiated itself within email archiving as a result of the successful rollout and widespread adoption of its Mailg8 solution. This email archiving, retention and continuity solution is multi-layered and combines information security policies and best practices with a state-of-the-art processing technology.