Category Archives: Microsoft Exchange

Amazon AWS, Box, Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity, DropBox, GDrive, Google, Guest Post, Microsoft Exchange, Outlook.com, SearchYourCloud, SharePoint, Storage

Google, Amazon Outages a Real Threat For Those Who Rely On Cloud Storage

Guest Post by Simon Bain, CEO of SearchYourCloud.

It was only for a few minutes, however Google was down. This follows hot on the heels of the other major cloud provider Amazon being down for a couple of hours earlier in August. This even relatively short outage could be a real problem for organizations that rely on these services to store their enterprise information. I am not a great lover of multi-device synchronization, I mean all those versions kicking around your systems! However if done well, it could be one of the technologies that help save ‘Cloud Stores’ from the idiosyncrasies of the Internet and a connected life.

We seem to be currently in the silly season of outages, with Amazon, Microsoft and Google all stating that their problems were cause by a switch being replaced or an update going wrong.

These outages may seem small for the supplier. But they are massive for the customer, who is unable to access sales data or invoices for a few hours.

This however, should not stop people using these services. But it should make them shop around, and look at what is really on offer. A service that does not have synchronization may well sound great. But if you do not have a local copy of your document on the device that you are actually working on, and your connection goes down, for whatever reason, then your work will stop.

SearchYourCloud Inc. has recently launched SearchYourCloud, a new application that enables people to securely find and access information stored in Dropbox, Box, GDrive, Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint or Outlook.com with a single search. Using either a Windows PC or any IOS device, SearchYourCloud will also be available for other clouds later in the year.

SearchYourCloud enables users to not only find what they are searching for, but also protects their data and privacy in the cloud.

Simon Bain

Simon Bain is Chief Architect and CEO of SearchYourCloud, and also serves on the Board of the Sun Microsystems User Group.

Archiving & Regulatory Retention, compliance, E-mail archiving, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Office 365, Mimecast, Research

Mimecast: Email Regulation Issues Leaving Businesses Confused

Corporate email archiving and retention policies are muddled and unclear, with many businesses leaving themselves exposed to potential litigation or compliance issues, according to new research launched today by Mimecast®, the leading supplier of cloud-based email archiving, security and continuity for Microsoft Exchange and Office 365.

The research, which surveyed IT managers on their organizations’ email policies and archiving practices, found that just 20 percent of businesses (23 percent globally) retain archived email for three years or more, with one in four businesses (25 percent U.S.; 26 percent globally) admitting that they do not have a clear policy on retaining email at all.

Key findings:

  • Email retention policies are often ad hoc or based on guesswork – Just
    one in four IT departments (30 percent U.S.; 26 percent globally) have
    an email retention policy designed to comply with industry regulations:
  • Forty-one percent of businesses surveyed (43 percent globally) say
    their archiving policies are based on ‘internal best practice’
    with no consideration given to industry or country specific
    regulations
  • Six percent of U.S. and global businesses admit to deciding their
    email retention policy around a ‘random future date’ with ‘no
    basis’
  • eDiscovery for email is a major area of concern – Many
    businesses are not confident that they would be able to identify all
    emails relating to a specific customer in a timely manner:

    • On average, it would take a U.S. business 15 working days to
      identify all emails relating to a potential litigation
    • Eighteen percent of U.S. businesses do not think they would be
      able to comply with this kind of email eDiscovery request within a
      month
  • Forty-one percent of businesses surveyed (43 percent globally) say
    their archiving policies are based on ‘internal best practice’
    with no consideration given to industry or country specific
    regulations
  • Six percent of U.S. and global businesses admit to deciding their
    email retention policy around a ‘random future date’ with ‘no
    basis’
  • On average, it would take a U.S. business 15 working days to
    identify all emails relating to a potential litigation
  • Eighteen percent of U.S. businesses do not think they would be
    able to comply with this kind of email eDiscovery request within a
    month
  • Concern around email compliance – IT departments are concerned
    that they are leaving their businesses exposed:

    • Just one in four (24 percent U.S.; 27 percent globally) IT teams
      are ‘completely confident’ that their email policies comply with
      all relevant regulations
    • Forty-eight percent (46 percent globally) are ‘mostly confident’
      with 34 percent (23 percent globally) ‘minimally confident’ or
      ‘not at all confident’
  • Just one in four (24 percent U.S.; 27 percent globally) IT teams
    are ‘completely confident’ that their email policies comply with
    all relevant regulations
  • Forty-eight percent (46 percent globally) are ‘mostly confident’
    with 34 percent (23 percent globally) ‘minimally confident’ or
    ‘not at all confident’

“Taking fifteen days to identify all relevant emails sent and received by a client is a massive and unnecessary resource drain,” said Jim Darsigny, CIO, Brown Rudnick LLP. “For IT departments, managing and enforcing email policies can no longer be an ad-hoc approach as the risk potential and time wasted is too high to ignore. In our organization, the cloud enables our business to significantly reduce the pain, costs and resources normally dedicated to sourcing archived email data. With a solid email eDiscovery strategy in place, we are not only able to better serve our clients, but we can also more accurately assess their level of risk.”

“IT departments can and should be doing more to protect their organizations by adopting a more rigorous approach to email archiving,” Eliza Hedegaard, Account Director Legal, Mimecast. “However, the businesses I speak to are not being helped by a regulatory system that is incredibly confusing and difficult to navigate. Regulators should be helping businesses by simplifying the regulatory framework and putting greater emphasis on clearly communicating what organizations need to do to in order to comply instead of adopting scare tactics that focus on what will happen if organizations fall foul of the rules.”