A recent study conducted from GFI Software has revealed that more than half of the small and medium sized businesses in the U.S. have not yet implemented a system of archiving emails. With the majority of business correspondence now taking place via the internet this is a huge disaster waiting to happen.
The reasons behind the shortcomings are as varied as the businesses reporting them. Many businesses claim to be too small to require a system of archiving emails, others state that privacy regulations would be violated, other simply say they don’t have the time or budget to adequately complete a backup. Among others who were polled nearly 30% stated they didn’t think archiving was important or thought that it was handled automatically by the mail server. While in some cases these may be valid points but on the whole this is taking a terrible risk.
There are many reasons for archiving emails. It’s possible that the exchange server could crash; and potentially lose all data saved in email. Related to this, you may wish to reduce the internal strain on your Microsoft Exchange Server. Lastly, human error is the culprit in IT disasters nine times out of ten and email archiving can back up and account for this.
Just as human error accounts for the majority of problems many companies make the mistake of depending on individuals to back up their own email. The small individual assessments and backups individuals make is not sufficient to combat a major complication. It’s far too easy to lose track and time for weeks to go by without any upkeep taking place.
The best way to deal with these problems is through upper management. Appoint an administrator to be in charge of regular backups for all company data. Additionally you may wish to invest in automated backup systems such as described here. If you use a bit of foresight and adequate planning you can divert a possible disaster and improve the performance of your company.
- Richard Keene
IT Computer Support of New York
Design and Optimization Department
