Simplifying email

Both Symantec and EMC now provides tools which allow for archiving of email to less expensive non-primary disks while appearing to the user to be still "live" in their actual inbox rather than archived into another folder.

Such automated technology can help improve productivity and address the email management problems that users and administrators face, noted Fung. "According to our survey data," he added, "only 13 percent of enterprises in the region perform formal email archiving operations."

While compliance and legal discovery issues are driving some companies into email archiving tools, according to Burton, 60 percent in Asia and Europe are doing email archiving to address basic email management issues. "These guys want email to work faster, better and take up less storage," he said.

According to Gartner, the decision to archive e-mail is a corporate one, and IT departments must implement the tools and infrastructure to support the policy, not create its own. "IT departments must obtain clear, written policies from corporate compliance officers regarding e-mail retention and ensure that they comply with the corporate policy completely and thoroughly," stated a recent Gartner report on email archiving approaches.