Current and Archiving Practices in the Enterprise an Osterman Research research summary

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Current Email and Archiving

Practices in the Enterprise

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Overview

LEGATO Systems sponsored an Osterman Research survey of organizations in order to understand how messaging is used, how information in messaging systems is managed and stored, how email is used to conduct business, and so forth. Osterman Research relied almost entirely on its panel of IT professionals to conduct this research. However, the survey was supplemented by 20

respondents who were made aware of the survey via LEGATO’s online newsletter, Newsline.

In total, 285 surveys were completed for this survey, primarily with individuals in North America. The results of the research are presented in this document, along with Osterman Research’s analysis of the research findings.

Osterman Research surveyed organizations that use a wide range of messaging systems. The breakdown of the leading messaging systems in use among the respondent organizations to this survey is as follows:

• Microsoft Exchange (in use by 66% of respondent organizations)

• Lotus Notes/Domino (30%)

• Novell GroupWise (12%)

• Sendmail (4%)

• Fischer TAO (2%)

Please note that the totals add to more than 100% because multiple messaging systems are in use by many organizations.

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Research Findings

The Critical Nature of Email

Most users receive a significant amount of email on a daily basis. As shown in the following figure, nearly one-half of email users receive more than 50 emails on a typical workday, while about one in six email users receives more than 100 emails daily.

Number of Business Emails Received Each Day by the Typical Email User

Under 20 12% 21-50 41% 51-100 32% More than 150 4% 101-150 11%

Although the number of emails received by the typical user is substantial, messaging system content – such as old emails, attachments, contacts and other information – is more than just email communication. Our research has found that more than one half of the critical information that the typical user needs to do his or her job on a daily basis is housed within the messaging system. In other words, the messaging system has become the focal point for most users’ daily work.

Most business users’ sent and received email is internal: as shown in the following figure, 52% of the typical users’ email is primarily internal, although a substantial proportion of email traffic is carried out with those outside of the internal

organization.

Percentage of Internal Email Sent and Received

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“Does your organization have an enforced email policy in place?”

Yes 68% No

32%

Email is used as written confirmation of approvals, orders and other business documents at the vast majority of organizations, as shown in the following figure.

“Is email used or accepted as written confirmation of approvals, orders, etc. within your organization?”

Yes 79% No

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Interestingly, near one-quarter of organizations have been involved in some sort of a dispute with a customer or supplier over an email-based issue. Further, one half of organizations have experienced business interruption or monetary loss because of email system downtime, as shown in the following figures.

“Has your organization ever been involved in a dispute with a customer or supplier over an email-based issue?”

Yes 24%

No 76%

“Has your organization ever experienced business interruption or monetary loss due to email system downtime?”

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Growth in Email Volume

Email volume has increased substantially during the past two years. As shown in the following figure, 38% of organizations have experienced more than 50% growth in email volume during the past two years, while an additional 30% of organizations have experienced growth of between 26% and 50%.

Growth in Email Volume During the Previous Two Years

0-5% 2% 6-10% 6% 11-25% 24% 26-50% 30% More than 50% 38%

Reasonably consistent with the growth in email volume has been a substantial increase in email storage requirements. As shown in the following figure, 55% of organizations have experienced email storage growth of greater than 50% during the past two years, while nearly 10% of organizations have experienced email storage growth of more than 200% during this period.

Growth in Email Storage Requirements During the Previous Two Years

0-25% 21% 26-50% 24% 51-100% 32% 101-200% 14% More than 200% 9%

The growth in both email volume and email storage has important implications for the enterprise. First, there is the cost of simply acquiring, installing and

maintaining the additional storage required to manage additional email volume. While the cost of storage has fallen dramatically in recent years, the total

lifecycle cost of managing storage is not an inconsequential part of the overall cost of managing a messaging system.

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storage requirements means that a growing proportion of email content must be moved offline to some storage medium more quickly in order to avoid being lost. Archiving Has a Long Way To Go

Most organizations do not have adequate long-term archival practices for their email systems. As shown in the following figure, our research found that virtually all organizations back up their email system on a regular basis, but 56% of these organizations do not keep all of the data on a long term basis, while 13% keep only critical data on a long term basis.

Current Organizational Email Backup and Archiving Strategies

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

IT backs up email, but does not keep data long

term

IT backs up email, keeps only critical data long

term

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Problems with Current Practices

The majority of email maintenance is handled primarily by IT departments, staff members and IT managers; although a significant proportion of email

maintenance is handled by individual email users, as shown in the figure below.

Entities Responsible for Email Maintenance

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

IT department/staff

Individual email users

IT manager

Other

The fact that more than 40% of email maintenance is handled by end users is one of the most alarming results of this survey. Most email users tend to be focused on their primary job responsibilities, not on the long term regulatory or knowledge management requirements of the greater organization.

Consequently, a user may inadvertently discard email-based information that is important for the organization to maintain on a long-term basis because of regulatory requirements, potential support for the organization in a lawsuit, or some other reason. This is particularly true in organizations that have established email quotas: for example, a user that has reached his or her quota at 4:00pm on a Friday afternoon and that must clear data from the message store in order to send a critical attachment to a client may delete potentially valuable

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More than one in three email users has lost emails due to technical problems, hardware damage, virus attacks or other technical issues, as shown in the following figure.

“Have you personally ever lost emails due to technical reasons?”

Yes 35%

No 65%

Why Archive?

There are three primary reasons to archive messaging system content:

• Legal requirements. Many organizations, such as those in the financial

services or medical industries, are required either by statute or other regulations to maintain an archive of all records-based information which often includes email traffic with customers and others. As shown in the

following figure, about one-third of all organizations surveyed for this study are required to comply with specific, email-related regulations. However, all organizations are required to comply with records retention requirements even in the absence of industry-specific regulations related to email retention.

“Is your organization required to comply with specific regulations related to email?”

Yes 32%

No 68%

• Email content represents corporate knowledge. Because most users’ critical

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• Faster restoration and protection from data loss. Restoring messaging system

content from an archive is easier and faster than doing so from a tape backup.

In short, simple tape backups are not sufficient for preserving the enormous amount of content housed in the typical messaging system. Further, most organizations that use tape backups simply do not preserve the data on them on a long-term basis, meaning that much of the corporate knowledge housed in the messaging system becomes lost. Worse, such short-term only storage

exposes many organizations to severe penalties for non-compliance with the various regulations and other requirements that exist for email and records retention.

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