Postini Releases Online IM and Email Archiving Service

By Greg McNevin

August 14, 2007: Not long after its acquisition by search colossus Google, communications security and compliance specialist Postini has announced new message archiving and discovery packages to tackle email and instant messaging compliance.

Aimed at businesses of all sizes, Postini claims its new Message Discovery capabilities address a wide range of requirements, including optimisation of mailbox storage management, e-discovery and litigation case management.

The firm is offering a trio of online archival services to replace what it calls “unreliable back-up tapes”. It claims its Basic, Standard and Professional packages provide more choice, lower total cost of ownership, rapid activation and scalability.

Basic is aimed at businesses who desire an online digital archive to optimise mail servers and support easy search, while Standard serves those who need Basic archiving plus greater control over storage pools and personal archive access for end users. Professional encompasses everything that Standard does, as well as offering WORM-like (write once read many) storage of message data.

“The adoption of an on-line message archiving strategy is not just limited to large or regulated companies,” said Scott Petry, founder, chief technology officer and executive vice president of product development at Postini. “Even unregulated small and mid-size businesses are impacted by message storage management and e-discovery costs. They should be actively saving and managing electronic data on-line.”

Postini's Message Archiving service could prove to be the most attractive part of is new offering as it can capture both email and IM traffic in-line, enabling customers to offload data from primary servers and institute a unified, cross-company policy to retain and delete communications data as required.

When it comes to e-discovery, the service enables keyword, sender, date and other search terms to be used to track down specific messages via an integrated Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes toolbar.

While the idea of remote storage of data may not appeal to all, the system represents and solid alternative to SMBs and other organisations not wishing to invest in increasing amounts of technology and staff time to manage compliance obligations.

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