With the current technology spotlight on Microsoft’s Exchange Server 2007 and the vendor’s simultaneous promotion of its Unified Communications strategy, there’s no better time for IT to think about deploying an intelligent archiving solution. Tightly integrated archiving solutions, such as Symantec’s Enterprise Vault 7.0, not only maximize the end-user experience but add value to deployments as well.

When it comes to enterprise messaging, the business case for archiving is loud and clear. The proliferation of e-mail across the enterprise is challenging companies to find cost-effective ways to manage electronic data today in preparation for regulatory, compliance, and e-discovery events tomorrow. With recent industry reports suggesting that as much as 75 percent of business intellectual property is stored in corporate messaging applications, short-term and long-term protection of and access to these valuable data stores is a necessity.

Setting an innovative direction with its 2007 application arsenal, Microsoft offers businesses new efficiencies, simplifications, and enhanced features and functionality. Exchange Server 2007 and Unified Communications (for e-mail, VoIP, telephony, instant messaging, and video and conferencing), among other technology offerings, not only drive but also strengthen the value proposition and need for archiving.

Working in tandem with many Microsoft products, archiving solutions such as Symantec’s Enterprise Vault can improve mailbox management, optimize storage consumption, eliminate PST headaches, enable faster backups and improve disaster recovery, implement intelligent archiving, provide a vehicle for legal and compliance requirements, and more. Or, in other words, pick up where Microsoft products leave off.

“We make it easier for customers to adopt and use the features and functionality of other technologies,” says Danny Milrad, senior manager for Symantec’s Enterprise Vault product marketing, referring to the product’s fit with Microsoft applications.

Working Together
Designed to reduce the complexities of enterprise communications, Microsoft outlined its strategy and technology roadmap for a unified communications framework. The goal: to simplify management of the disparate modes of communication, i.e., voice, cell phone, e-mail, instant messaging, VoIP, video, and conferencing, found in most enterprises.

Two core pieces of the framework are the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Together, the products offer unified messaging, enhanced mobility, and a simpler way for companies to manage their communication infrastructure, according to the vendor.

There are several other technologies from Microsoft, such as Microsoft Windows Rights Management Services (WRMS) and Windows Desktop Search (WDS) that further broaden what is commonly referred to as the Microsoft ecosystem. Enterprise adoption of Microsoft’s latest technologies is designed to facilitate improvements in security, access, and operations of mission-critical enterprise communications.

Where, then, with the abundance of new or enhanced capabilities in Microsoft’s product line up, does intelligent archiving fit in and how can an intelligent archiving solution enhance the Microsoft ecosystem?

In a nutshell: Vendors like Symantec, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and active participant in the Microsoft Exchange and Office 2007 Technical Adoption Program (TAP), stay ahead of the curve as it relates to integration with new Microsoft technology. Enterprise Vault 7.0, for example, is the first archiving software provider to support Exchange 2007; the first to support WDS; the first to support WRMS; the first native IM arching support, including Live Communication Server; and, there’s Microsoft Cluster Server support for Enterprise Vault servers.

Continuing its support of Exchange, which began with Enterprise Vault’s product inception in 1999, Symantec increases the value of Exchange 2007 especially in the areas of unified messaging and managed folders, which will increase both the volume and retention period of content stored in users’ mailboxes.

A Closer Look
Right from the get-go, an intelligent archiving solution becomes a compelling proposition in an Exchange migration. IT can offload messages from Exchange to the archive to ease migration. As archived mailboxes are smaller and contain mostly shortcuts, the migration of a mailbox will be faster because less data needs to be moved.

With less storage utilization on the new system, there can be more users per server while storing only the most recent e-mail that is in use on the high-performance disk.

Once Exchange 2007 is in place, IT managers can utilize products such as Enterprise Vault to improve Exchange system performance, service levels, and back-up times by off-loading and storing data based on classification and retention policies.

And, when it comes to having critical functionality like archiving, compliance, and discovery, Enterprise Vault offers robust capabilities that are specifically designed to help corporations reduce risk and liability.

For example, Exchange Server 2007 touts features such as mailbox management, which allows for larger mailboxes that leverage 64-bit architecture and lends itself to faster I/O and better application performance and scalability. Microsoft’s mailbox management does not address the long-term management of data, which entails indexing, compression, and reducing e-mail duplication for the purpose of archiving.

The granular journaling capability and managed folders capability of Exchange Server 2007 is said to offer users functionality designed to help organizations address compliance and legal requirements. While Microsoft has taken a step in the right direction by adding these features to its product, organizations that rely on these features alone to meet compliance and legal requirements won’t meet their objective.

Journaled mailboxes, for example, still need to be stored in a long-term repository where modifications cannot occur, unlike having mailboxes sit on more expensive Exchange storage where mailboxes can be modified. Storage in a long-term, central repository such as Enterprise Vault also allows for searching across e-mails, IM, files, SharePoint, and other sources.

Enterprise Vault customers can also leverage Symantec’s Discovery Accelerator as it integrates with Exchange and can now include information that sits inside the Exchange server as part of the discovery process. While Microsoft now offers a command line utility to search across mailboxes in an Exchange server, the tool has a number of limitations regarding search granularity and does not provide case management or audit trail capability. In other words, with Microsoft’s tool administrators can retrieve certain e-mails quickly, but it is not designed to run a large legal investigation.

Today, the climate surrounding compliance, regulatory requirements and discovery is such that businesses cannot think about corporate communications without thinking about risk and responsibility. The two are bound.

That’s why, as organizations move to Exchange Server 2007, Office Communications Server 2007, and other sophisticated Microsoft applications, there’s an imperative to adopt a tightly integrated, robust intelligent archive solution.