According to Jeremy Burton, senior vice president of Symantec's Data Management Group, backup and archive operations have traditionally entailed copying data to tape and storing it in a safe place, usually offsite. The challenge now is that increasingly people are requesting recovery of that stored data. People are discovering that the archive is not always the best place to look for certain data as archives are typically not indexed well and have not been tended for years. "Many companies have found it insanely difficult to retrieve data when requested," said Burton.

He said that financial firm Morgan Stanley was recently asked by regulators to disclose some accounting information which they provided in full, or so they thought. After submission they found a stockpile of 1600 tapes with additional information for the regulators. Another recovery of tapes at a later stage uncovered further data for the regulators who decided Morgan Stanley was withholding information, thus woefully disregarding its obligation to produce all the requested information.

The risk of similar incidents is driving many companies including those here in Asia Pacific to address their email archiving policies and management tools.

Traditional backup and archive methods can help recall where data came from and the filenames of the data requested, but trying to recall a batch of emails relating to a specific transaction or project is beyond many email administrators.

Consistent policy enforcement