Bay Area IT Consultant Advice for Businesses – Establish Email Archiving Policies
Email communication has made it easy for businesses to converse and keep relevant records regarding past dealings. However, it is important to note that despite the convenience it brings, a Bay Area IT consultant will advise that email archiving is mandated by a set of ever-evolving archiving regulations that you should make yourself aware of.
What’s required by law and Why?
Back in 2006, a law was put forward regulating data archiving. It stated that a business must maintain electronic records, i.e. you cannot do away with emails when they are no longer of use to you. That is, they should be stored for future reference. Thus, email archiving is not just a convenience, but a process mandated by law.
The law also emphasizes that simply storing data isn’t sufficient. That is, you cannot just use a random server and let emails pile into it. You have to understand how the storage apparatus works and have the capability to use it efficiently, especially when it comes to retrieving emails.
Consequences of failure to comply?
The consequences for failing to comply with federal email archiving statutes are severe. You could pay heavy fines, incur various court costs on behalf of the other party, be held in contempt of court, or even get an automatic guilty verdict due to your inability to produce the requested data in a competent and timely manner.
Benefits of archiving for your business?
Since archiving can be an automated process, emails can be prevented from taking up crucial space on your business servers. This helps to reduce the load on your email server, resulting in fewer problems for your IT department. Additionally, email archiving serves as a significant deterrent against data loss. It allows you to simply recover information whenever you need to, while also assisting in the streamlining of your data backup system since the emails are already organized in a systematic way.
How you can implement and what you should include in an effective and legal archiving process/system:
In most cases, a viable email archiving policy should include:
- The need of the policy – honoring the state and federal regulations that contribute to your specific policy and those sanctioned in your industry.
- Division of storage – determining where and how relevant information will be stored to ensure that any emails that do not have legal merit are deleted.
- Accomplishing storage – determining the kind of system you will use and the party responsible for implementing the solution.
Bay Area IT Consultant to Provide Business Solutions and IT Insights
Eaton & Associates is an IT services company operating in the Bay Area. We provide managed IT services and reputable IT consultants to a wide array of businesses in San Francisco, Burlingame, and the greater Bay Area.
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Eaton & Associates, based in the Bay Area for more than 28 years, we provide IT Support Services & Products to a wide range of clients, including Government, Enterprise, Small and Medium Business and Non-Profit Organizations. Services include: Managed IT Services, Professional IT Solutions, and IT Project Management & Bay Area IT Consultant. Eaton & Associates is a strategic partner with most technology vendors such as HP Enterprise & Aruba Networks, Palo Alto Networks, Nutanix, Nimble Storage, Cisco, Rubrik, Dropbox for Business, Dell, VMware, Citrix, Microsoft, Apple, and many more top technology vendors.
