Archiving Overview

A message archiving system saves a copy of incoming and outgoing messages on a system separate from Messaging Server. Sent, received, deleted, and moved messages can all be saved in, and retrieved from, an archive system. Archived messages cannot be modified or removed by email users so the integrity of incoming and outgoing messages is maintained. Message archiving is useful for compliance record keeping, message store management, and message back up.

Archived messages can be viewed through the AXS-One portal or through Messaging Server. If the messages are deleted from Messaging Server, the AXS-One portal can be used to retrieve those deleted messages. Note, however, that archived messages are not stored in a mailbox folders structure as they are in the Messaging Server. Refer to the AXS-One literature for details.

The system can also be set up so that Messaging Server displays archived messages. For example, you can set up your system to archive messages over two years old. When the user fetches the message from a client, the message store downloads it from the archive server and displays it. From the user's point of view, the message looks the same as an normal email message. On the Messaging Server, however, instead of the message body, there is a stub that points to a URL of the contents of the message body stored on the archive system.

Message Archiving Systems: Compliance and Operational

There are two types of archiving, compliance and operational. Compliance archiving is used when you have a legal obligation to maintain strict retrievable email record keeping. Selected email (selected by user(s), domain, channel, incoming, outgoing and so on) coming into the MTA is copied to the archive system before being delivered to the message store or the internet. Archiving can be set to occur either before or after spam and virus filtering.

Operational archiving is used for mail management purposes. For example:

• To reduce storage usage on the message store by moving older messages to an archiving system which generally uses lower cost storage.

• As an alternative for data backup.

Note that compliance and operational archiving are not exclusive. That is, you can set up your system so that it does both compliance and operational archiving.