GlassHouse Technologies, Inc., the global leader in independent storage consulting services, announced today the launch of a new service: Email Archiving Strategy. This new offering tackles one of the fastest growing areas of concern in the IT world – email archiving, and subsequent e-discovery and retrieval of emails.
The Email Archiving Strategy is reflective of GlassHouse’s Service Provider Model, and correlates with key industry standards, such as ITIL and Cobit. It enables clients to efficiently and cost-effectively store and recall archived email in compliance with various legislative requirements. Storing data is usually not an issue, given the decline in per-gigabyte storage costs, however the ability to retrieve archived email in a reasonable timeframe, and at a reasonable cost, requires a flexible, and often tiered storage solution based on the data’s business requirements and value.
Emphasizing a policy-based approach, GlassHouse’s Email Archiving Strategy offers a customized, intelligent architectural solution comprised of seven main components: policy development, consensus building, gap and cost analysis, reference architecture design, solution selection, implementation, and project management.
GlassHouse consultants first analyze and document the client’s business needs. Although email archiving is the IT department’s operational responsibility, email archiving policies are directed by legal, business and risk managers. GlassHouse consultants work as facilitators between these groups to align IT with business objectives, building consensus to create the foundation for a policy-based reference architecture. This tiered architecture is supported by a cost model, which allows the organization to model the impact of changes in policy and attributes that drive email archiving. The resulting reference architecture is customer-specific and vendor neutral, identifying features, functions, and the capabilities of the software and hardware needed to meet the business requirements.
“We leverage the Service Provider Model to reduce costs and improve service levels for our clients,” said Dick Benton, a GlassHouse Principal Consultant. “Our Email Archiving Strategy offering provides an essential layer of cost-effective protection against the vulnerabilities that can occur when a legal discovery process is mandated.” Benton added that an effective archiving strategy can also simplify and reduce email administration as well as provide additional cost reductions in email data protection.
The longer businesses wait to address email archiving issues, the more exposed they are to legal and financial repercussions. According to a study in InformationWeek (5/08/2006), 65 percent of businesses are currently taking that risk. The increased demand for discovery of historical emails, the operational issues developed by the growing size of email data stores, and the compliance requirements to retain email are all addressed by GlassHouse’s development of the Email Archiving Strategy solution.
ABOUT GLASSHOUSE TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
GlassHouse is the leading provider of independent services that help organizations solve the business problems of enterprise storage. From strategy through implementation, operations and customer support, GlassHouse partners with clients to achieve predictability and manageability in storage operations, enabling cost control, risk mitigation and increased service levels. GlassHouse clients include UBS, Exxon Mobil, Allianz Life, Virgin Mobile, and The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America. More information about GlassHouse is available at www.glasshouse.com.
