Archive all emails

[adhodgson]

Hi,

Does anyone here use anything to archive all emails into a searchable format? I can get all emails archived, but they aren't very searchable - i.e, there are several products out there with web interfaces to search for emails,, but support only Exchange. I need to keep all emails for at least 2 years, probably longer.

Any suggestions?
Thanks.
Andrew.

[Shredder]

Don't understand what you mean.

Are you using the ARCHIVE option of scalix or some 3rd party plug in?

Shredder

[adhodgson]

Hi.

Currently we aren't using anything - I know about the options for archiving in Scalix, I was just wondering whether anyone was using any products to provide the archives in a searchable format - there are loads of systems out there, and I am currently looking at Mimecast as a solution, but the one thing we have to provide is a searchable archive - i.e, putting the archive into a directory isn't going to be enough.

Andrew.

[Shredder]

Considering the emails will be delivered to a mail account, you could use SWA or Outlook to search it.

To make it searchable to everyone would be more difficult I think.

Shredder

[adhodgson]

Hi,

That is a good point and one I hadn't thought of - using the BCC option to go to a Scalix mailbox, then use SWA. However, I don't really want the mailbox on that machine, as the security people here are talking about retaining *all* email for at least 7 years!

Andrew.

[Shredder]

Ouch!!! 7 Years?!?!?! That's going to be a lot of storage :->

Sorry I can't be of more help with that.

Shredder

[adhodgson]

Hi all,

Well I have had a really ddepressing week with this - I have spoken to several companies and have got the following responses regarding email archiving:-

1. Our product will only work with Exchange, you are limiting your competative advantage by using a "non-standard" (!!!) mailserver.

2. The archive function is not generating enough information for our system. Such as the SMTP envelope, for example (I agree with this actually). I will follow up on this next week - apparently the Exchange archive function records a lot of information about the message which is used by the archiving systems. Scalix just records thee message and it's header.

3. We used to support Scalix but no longer due to lack of use.

All I want is a system which will archive all emails and put them into a searchable format, which we can store for several years. Keeping the messages in the mailbox is not the answer. I would dearly like to know if anyone is going for some of the financial accreditations and is using Scalix with some of the email archiving systems. I am quite happy to adapt as much as possible to get this to work, as at the moment this could be the breaking deal which forces us down the Exchange path, only a few months after we migrated from our Qmail setup.

I am speaking to one last company on Tuesday to see if they can offer us anything, because I have seen a distant mention of them in this forum, but I will have to present the board with only one solution, instead of several solutions out there if we had Exchange.

I am not blaming Scalix entirely for this, just the domination thing -- everyone having to use Exchange due to the fact that most add-on products are now only working with it.

Sorry for the rant.
Andrew.

[florian]

Andrew,

2. The archive function is not generating enough information for our system. Such as the SMTP envelope, for example (I agree with this actually). I will follow up on this next week - apparently the Exchange archive function records a lot of information about the message which is used by the archiving systems. Scalix just records thee message and it's header.

maybe you want to get in touch with us directly to discuss the best solution to cover your needs; as a side remark, the above is not correct - while the scalix archiving interface provides only message and headers when using the BCC mechanism, all other mechanisms actually do preserve the SMTP envelope.

Florian.

[adhodgson]

Hi,

Thanks - have sent you an email :).

Andrew.

[Mouseclone]

was there ever an end solution to this. I'm starting to look into options right now. My boss want 3 years on the server and the rest archived. Wasn't sure if any further detail to this would be posted as a follow up or not to give me some ideas.

[adhodgson]

Hi,

There were three products which look promising, we will probably be going with one of these in the near future:

Email Systems <www.emailsystems.com>, externally provided archive solution, using SMTP based archiving, sees no reason why it won't work with Scalix, as long as it can deliver archive messages via SMTP.. This is the one we will probably go for, if we get sign off we will get a trial at which point I will give feedback.

Cryoserver - http://www.forensiccs.com/. This is an appliance and the guys there have dealt with Scalix previously.

Message Solution - http://www.messagesolution.com - Is a bit cheaper than the other products,, and receives SMTP journeling from Scalix.

CA have a solution, but it looks very complex and time consuming to set up and manage.

We want to get users using this as their long term storage, so they can delete messages out of their mailbox say after a month. Authentication iss an issue for us, since we don't use Active Directory on the server.

Andrew.

[dwerthmu]

I too am interested in an email archiving solution, but I'm not interested in every email ever sent. I'm interested in having a user select a folder they want to archive and push it to the archive.
I'm really interested in a more technology neutral solution to the archive storage too. These exchange solutions etc.. require them to stick to their product forever to keep access to the archive. Chances are that my data will out live the company and product currently supporting it.

Can we use the scalix web services API to pull data from the store into an XML form and place it into a sql or xml db?

Cheers

[florian]

dwerthmu,

the problem with what you describe is a legal one; depending on where you come from, things might be different, but generally you should expect that in most legislations companies will have to keep emails archived as part of their general archive for business auditing. What makes it into an archive or what not cannot be under the control of the end user. If it works for you, great, however in Europe under Basel III or in the US under SOX legislation, it doesn't.

Having said that, yes, the Scalix REST API can be used to access xml-wrapped message data.

See the API guide available at http://www.scalix.com/documentation for details.

Florian.

[adhodgson]

Hi,

Well after all that, the directors decided not to go with an archiving solution at this time :(. We just implemented SpamTitan for the antispam solution, and will be looking at this when we go for the relevant legislation.

Thanks.
Andrew.