Love it or loath it, the e-mail is here to stay. And increased regulation means companies must face up to the fact that e-mail archiving is now a necessity, not a luxury.

High-profile court cases involving global operators have shown that anyone can fall foul of the courts if e-mails that contain important evidence have been deleted. No one is immune.

In a short time, e-mail has replaced paper as the main medium for business transactions.

Yet, the conveniency that makes them so successful has also led them to be treated much less formally than physical documents, such as letters - both in the language used and the way they are stored.

Every company keeps its e-mails on some form of backup. But the majority still do not know how long they should be kept, where they should be kept and, most importantly, what should be kept.

From a technology point of view, the responsibility for retaining e-mails generally lies with the IT department. No matter who takes on the task, however, deciding which e-mails should be saved and for how long is a decision that involves all departments.

Once that decision has been taken, it is the responsibility of IT to implement a cost-efficient archiving system that ensures a single copy of an e-mail - not multiple carbon copies - and any attachments, are readily available.

The next major issue is where to keep them. A popular choice is to keep the latest e-mails on high availability disk for a certain period. Thereafter, they can be archived onto a tape library and finally moved to an off-line tape in secure storage.

Whatever option, the fundamental principle remains the same. Companies must be able to retrieve a copy of an old e-mail, for example, if it is needed in a legal conflict with a former employee. Accidental deletion is no defence. With that in mind, it is also a good idea to advise your workers to watch what they type.

* Michael McMeekin is managing director of Wisdom IT. Log on to www.wisdomit.co.uk

Published: 07/06/2005