Archive for December, 2009

In a recent posting on the ITBusinessEdge Blog, it was pointed out that large enterprises may be hesitant to adopt cloud computing and storage because of something called the National Security Letters.

As with much in this  industry many things are referred to with different phrases or acronyms.  Earlier this week I read an interesting question on one of the discussion lists that I follow and the question was if the process of legal holds would also apply for pending or reasonably assumed investigations by regulatory agencies.

In my previous blog I exposed the naked truth about Exchange deleted items and how easy it is to destroy potential email records. 

Microsoft must have listened because the new version Exchange 2010 includes substantial improvements to the “dumpster” and deleted item behavior and closed the potential “leak” for eDiscovery.

The new Exchange 2010 dumpster is a complete new design.  Here is a link if you want the complete story.

To fully understand email discovery with Microsoft Exchange Server, you need to understand how the deleted item process works.  Here is a quick summary.

For Exchange 2007 and earlier versions, deleted email is moved to the deleted folder.  Once the deleted folder is emptied, the email moves into a system folder called the “dumpster”.  Email remains in the dumpster for a time determined by the Admin.  Typically this is 7 days.  After 7 days, the email is permanently removed from Exchange.

Two months ago Mimosa Systems announced that it further integrated with NetApp’s storage and data management solutions.  This was an important announcement as Mimosa NearPoint is actually the only archiving product that offers multiple methods to ingest data for archiving from Exchange.  Not only logshipping, but Journaling and now shadowless archiving.

In a recent survey conducted by Osterman Research, it was revealed that 82 percent of employees use their personal email accounts to send large work-related files when an email attachment exceeds the size limit imposed by IT.

Is this a problem?…YES

Last week I gave a webinar with fellow Exchange MVP Lee Benjamin on Exchange 2010 and how it handles PST files.  You can actually listen to the recording at this link.

Southeastern Mechanical Services, Inc. v. Brody, 2009 WL 2883057 (M.D. Fla. Aug. 31, 2009)

In this recent case Southeastern Mechanical Services, Inc. (“SMS”) requested spoliation sanctions asserting that laptops and BlackBerries issued by Thermal Engineering Construction Services, Inc. (“TEI”) to Defendants Norman Brody, Jimmy Sherouse, and Kevin Smith were completely wiped of any data. SMS asserted that Defendants acted in bad faith in destroying crucial evidence that they had a duty to preserve so asked for an Adverse Inference order from the Judge.