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You've got mail (so what are you going to do with it?) A look at the tricky task of email excavation.

Article Excerpt
We're turning into a nation of hoarders. Email hoarders that is. Corporate governance regulations combined with an all-pervasive "cover your back" mentality means that we save more of our email correspondence than ever before.

This in itself is not a bad thing. Recent high profile cases of "lost" emails have sent shockwaves through the corporate world.

Nevertheless, the explosion in email usage (35 million emails are sent worldwide every day according to IDC) can only add to the workload of IT teams. While their colleagues are busy creating new emails, IT staff is working to ensure that the thousands already in existence are safely stored. Because of the high costs associated with storing email directly on the server, most companies now set a limit on mailbox sizes meaning that emails quickly pass from the server to tape.

It is not until somebody needs to retrieve an email that these email archives are put in the spotlight. Suddenly the managing director wants proof that a supplier contract was terminated six months ago and there's no time to spare.

Easier said than done. Creating a recovery server, mounting entire mailboxes and searching through each one for the email in question can take hours as well as drain thousands of dollars from the IT budget. And all the while there is the...

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