Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1596
ILTA White Paper E-Mail Life Cycle 26 mary kay rOBertO mimecast Y our firm can't afford to ignore e-mail archiving, security, internal policy or regulatory requirements, but can it afford to keep paying for multiple systems on top of your e-mail system in order to address these challenges? When you add up the full price tag for your e-mail environment, from server to software to risk management and staff costs, it becomes clear why running everything in-house can mean you spend far more of your budget on maintenance than innovation. LEgaL IT ChaLLEngEs aRE LuRKIng Any time confidential client information is compromised, the costs are high — not just in terms of money, but also trust. And in the legal world, client confidence is paramount. In addition to storage issues, information management concerns, continuity planning, security problems, policy enforcement and regulatory requirements, legal IT departments face issues related to conflicts of interest, archiving and retrieval, and e-discovery. A variety of ancillary services are available to tackle each one of these components; however, a multifaceted, multivendor approach can be costly and time-consuming. E-discovery standards require that the chain of custody for e-mail messages and attachments be verified to ensure the evidentiary quality of data. This adds another layer of complexity to the legal IT manager's plate. Ensuring e-mail is free from spam or malware and that it is not a conduit for social engineering attacks or security breaches is as critical as making a permanent record for compliance. CaLCuLaTIng ThE TRuE COsT Of E-MaIL Most organizations add to their e-mail infrastructure in an organic fashion as new threats or regulatory requirements arrive. They rarely step back and analyze the total cost of e-mail for the business. Understanding how much your current e-mail system costs, and how that all adds up, is the key to making changes and providing better service for your users. And the numbers can be quite surprising. bEgIn WITh uPfROnT CaPITaL InvEsTMEnT Many of the costs associated with building your e-mail infrastructure are in the initial capital outlay of buying the appropriate hardware. Few businesses can cope with a single e-mail server, so adding policy management, archiving, and perimeter security tools means adding systems on which to run them. To ensure uptime, e-mail servers may need to be clustered or even set up to work over a WAN connection to a disaster recovery center. Risk management and regulatory requirements don't diminish in a failover situation. Therefore, a large number of the additional services around the e-mail server itself will also need to be clustered using their own high-availability configurations. Failover hardware needs to be part of any implementation, and it needs periodic testing. MOvE TO MIgRaTIOn COsTs Hardware and appliances have a finite lifespan, requiring constant upgrading and migration every three to five years. This can be a daunting obstacle considering that a typical archive requires storing seven years' worth of e-mail. During this time there might be up to three separate upgrade cycles, each involving a hardware purchase and the migration of an increasing volume of data, with each migration introducing the risk of data loss or corruption. Then, you can add in a share of the data center costs for space, power and cooling. These costs quickly dwarf your initial hardware and software investments, and they rise as energy prices rise. uPgRadEs add TO OPERaTIOnaL COsTs There are upgrades to support new features, the installation of software patches and integration with other systems. The latest e-mail server releases require 64-bit, multicore machines with The Total Cost of E-Mail Management Putting a Price Tag on Protection