How Does Email Archiving Work?

Email serves as a critical communication channel for most businesses, facilitating both internal and external interactions. However, the management of email can often present challenges related to security, accessibility, and storage. 

An effective solution to these issues lies in email archiving—a strategy that not only enhances data security but also optimizes email management. 

In this article, we will explore what email archiving is, how it works, and its essential role in your email system. From compliance with regulatory mandates to ensuring business continuity and improving server performance, we’ll cover the multifaceted benefits that make email archiving a smart decision for any organization.

Quick Takeaways

• Email archiving enhances security and compliance by encrypting data, restricting access, and helping businesses meet regulatory requirements like HIPAA, SOX, and GDPR.
• Archiving improves email management and accessibility by indexing emails, making them searchable, and reducing time spent retrieving critical information.
• It optimizes server performance and reduces downtime by offloading emails from the main server to cloud storage, ensuring a faster and more efficient email system.
• Advanced archiving features support business continuity by enabling automated retention policies, proactive threat detection, and seamless data recovery when needed. 

What Is Email Archiving?

Email archiving is the practice of preserving these communications through cloud-based storage. It enables users to index, search, and retrieve old emails.

Why Would an Organization Archive Emails?

There are several business reasons to deploy an archiving solution, including:

• Business continuity and disaster recovery
• Internal audits, investigations, and eDiscovery for litigation (especially true for highly regulated industries)
• Regulatory compliance mandates
• Following security best practices
• Record management
• Protection of intellectual property (IP)
• Minimizing the need to increase bandwidth while retaining the data

Your need to archive may fall into multiple categories. It delivers benefits that can help you in various ways, from compliance requirements to cost savings.

How Does the Archiving Process Work?

The email archiving process captures 100% of inbound and outbound emails. The system then places these in a secured, cloud environment that’s accessible.

It’s not the same as email backup. The difference is that a backup only backs up data for a limited time period to restore if necessary. Simply backing up your email doesn’t consider compliance requirements, nor does it help prevent data loss.

If you’re currently only using a backup approach, you should be aware of its limitations. It’s also important to understand if it can or cannot deliver on all the business reasons you have for preserving email.

Optimizing Your Email Management Strategy with Archiving

Enhancing Email Organization and Accessibility

Effective email management is crucial for maintaining organizational efficiency. By integrating an email archiving solution, businesses can greatly improve their ability to store, organize, and access critical communications. 

Archived emails are indexed and searchable, allowing users to retrieve information quickly based on various criteria like:

• Keywords
• Sender
• Date ranges

This streamlines information retrieval, reducing time spent searching and increasing time spent on strategic activities.

Improving Server Performance and Reducing Downtime

Moving emails off the main server and into a cloud-based archive helps free up valuable server space, enhancing server performance and reducing downtime. This shift both speeds up the email system and boosts overall productivity by ensuring that employees have quick and reliable access to needed information.

Supporting Strategic Data Management

Email archiving supports strategic data management by enabling businesses to set retention policies that comply with legal and regulatory requirements. This structured approach to data retention ensures that emails are preserved for the required duration and securely disposed of when no longer necessary. 

Managing the lifecycle of information in this way keeps data relevant and manageable, aiding in compliance efforts and data organization.

Enhancing Data Security with Advanced Archiving Features

Robust Encryption Protocols

Email archiving solutions utilize strong encryption protocols to protect data in transit and at rest. This dual-layer protection ensures that all archived emails are shielded from unauthorized access, keeping sensitive business information and intellectual property secure against cyber threats.

Compliance with Regulatory Standards

Archiving systems are engineered to comply with regulations such as HIPAA, SOX, and GDPR. They manage data systematically and maintain detailed records, which are crucial for compliance and audit processes. This helps businesses avoid legal penalties and maintain a trustworthy reputation.

Advanced Access Controls

Email archiving includes sophisticated access controls that restrict data visibility to authorized personnel only, minimizing the risk of internal data breaches. Detailed activity logs offer a transparent audit trail, enhancing security management and accountability.

Proactive Threat Detection

Archiving services actively monitor for unusual activity that could indicate a security breach, such as abnormal access patterns or unauthorized attempts to access the archive. Early detection allows administrators to swiftly address potential threats, protecting the integrity and confidentiality of archived data.

What Are the Benefits of Email Archiving?

The benefits of email archiving translate into business value. They include:

Meeting Regulatory Compliance

Certain industries have mandates regarding email communication if it contains confidential information. One of the most common is HIPAA, which regulates healthcare information. Those in this sector can achieve compliance by archiving.

The archive keeps the data secure and provides a virtual paper trail should an audit occur. Compliance isn’t an option; it’s mandatory. By leveraging an archiving solution, you can also meet the regulations for FRCP, SOX, FINRA, GLB, NYSE, NASD, SEC, and others.

Retaining Data

Even the smallest companies generate thousands of emails. They often contain vital information, so retaining them is appropriate and may even be required. However, keeping them on your email server isn’t sustainable. You’ll quickly see your bandwidth diminish, which could include more costs.

An archive moves those emails to the cloud and provides you with the ability to search them. The data is secure due to encryption, and you can find what you need in minutes, not hours.

Achieving a True Backup for Business Continuity

As noted, an email backup falls short of restoration. In this model, the Office 365 cloud houses the email files; however, this storage alone doesn’t preserve data for the long term. The archiving integration builds on top of what you have to create a permanent place for the emails to reside. You don’t have to do anything extra; it’s automatic.

Protecting IP

Emails can often contain IP. In fact, Microsoft reported that as much as 75 percent of company emails include IP. While you may not notice this because the IP is inherent to you, it could become an area of risk. Even the most minor trade secrets need protection. You’ll have more control over the content of these emails with archiving. It provides a repository where data loss isn’t a threat.

Managing Legal Discovery

If your company is in the middle of litigation, there will likely be eDiscovery requests regarding email. Without an archive, this will be an arduous task. An archive enables you to search, filter, and find what you need, so you don’t waste time and resources.

Recovering Deleted Emails

Deleting emails is a normal function. Most of the time, there’s no cause for concern. However, sometimes a user can inadvertently or purposely delete something that’s important or includes confidential information. Unfortunately, some of your employees may be engaging in risky behavior. A backup is a smart move to mitigate any fallout from such actions.

What Archiving Features Do You Need?

Before you choose an archiving solution, here are the features you should prioritize:

• Security: This is at the top of the list. Find out how the system safeguards data with encryption (both while in transit and at rest) and how it meets compliance requirements regarding data security.
• Scalability: You don’t want to have limits on storage capacity. Be sure it can meet your needs today and tomorrow.
• Indexing of all file types: Not all archiving products include all file types or attachments. Ask about what it can index to ensure you’re covered.
• Constant email capture: Be sure the solution captures and stores all sent and received emails.
• Search functionality: In most cases, if you need to access your email archive, it’s because you’re looking for specific information tied to litigation, a breach, or an audit. Select a product that makes searching easy with tagging, filtering, advanced search, and categorization.
• Exporting: Once you find the emails you need, you’ll want to be able to export them for the archive. Make sure this is possible, and that you have multiple format choices.
• Integration: The standard Office 365 archiving doesn’t offer you complete protection. You’ll need a specific tool that meets all your needs. This will typically require an integration, so be sure that there are no compatibility issues while comparing options.
• Easy set-up: You shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to add this to your email. It should be simple to implement and not require additional licenses.

Choosing the right email archiving solution requires careful evaluation of these features to ensure it meets your security, compliance, and accessibility needs while seamlessly integrating with your existing systems.

Secure the Future of Your Business Today with Intermedia

Email archiving is an essential component of a comprehensive email management strategy that enhances security, compliance, and efficiency across your organization. By implementing a robust archiving system, your business can safeguard critical communications and ensure seamless access to important information when needed.

Discover how Intermedia’s advanced email archiving solutions can streamline your communication workflows and protect your data. Contact us today to learn more or schedule a demo to see these benefits in actions.

Kimberly Baker Kelley

Kimberly Baker Kelley is a Senior Product Marketing Manager at Intermedia where she focuses on helping businesses secure their business communications using Intermedia’s award-winning cloud solutions. Kimberly brings over 20 years of experience in unified communications and security solutions across product marketing, product management and industry solutions. In her free time, she enjoys running, gardening and spending time with family and friends.