A new email archiving software system that enables companies to better handle regulatory compliance and storage issues has been launched by The Linux Box Corporation.

Called Enkive, the solution promises to deliver the ability for organisations to easily store email while retaining control over their IT infrastructure, information and processes.

Enkive captures email messages as they arrive or are sent to ensure they are retained before a worker can delete them in an email client. It permits recovery of email in full support of an organisation's retention policies. Search and recovery of email from Enkive occurs in real-time -- just a few minutes rather than days.

Enkive also reduces storage costs by eliminating the capture of redundant messages and attachments. Its systematic approach reconstructs messages in the search and retrieval process -- using the body of the message and its attachments -- instead of relying on the traditional method of only checking text and metadata such as sender, dates, recipient and subject. Archived content can be encrypted (at a company's discretion) and is only accessible to authorised users.

"Even if compliance is not a key requirement, email activity represents a record of organizational communications that should be archived and made retrievable," said Elizabeth Ziph, CEO, The Linux Box.

"Take for example a customer complaint sent to an employee which is accidentally deleted. Or a volley of emails between customers and employees that few in management are aware of. Wouldn't it be better if these could be retrieved in time to address customer issues before a situation escalates?

"We developed Enkive in response to client requests for an email archiving system with more dynamic management and security features than what was currently available. Open source archiving systems lack the ability to retain email based on policies that are time and content dependent. Enkive allows organizational decision makers to define and implement retention and retrieval policies to determine what to keep and what to purge.”

Enkive uses the Alfresco open source as a framework for document and record management. It offers a full reporting service and flexible audit policy so decision makers can know who has accessed what in the archive and when.