Is Your Legacy Email Archive Limiting Your Business in a Technology-First World?

Whether you used MX Logic before it was acquired by McAfee or used tools from the short-lived Intel Security platform, you are likely looking to move away from a now obsolete solution or have begun preparations already. However, with significant changes to your infrastructure comes new opportunities. The power and flexibility of modern, cloud-based email solutions like Microsoft Office 365 and Gmail are regularly luring businesses away from their legacy archiving solutions such as Enterprise Vault and EMC SourceOne, or those like MX Logic and Mimosa Nearpoint that have reached end of life and are no longer supported. Regardless, in an ever more competitive business world, your best move is a move to the cloud.

Break Free of Limitations and Take Control of Your Data

Whether you’re looking for more predictable costs, reduced maintenance and security burdens, or the flexibility and cutting-edge tools the cloud offers, migrating to a cloud-based platform has become an essential choice for businesses in the last few years. With many organizations competing with those that were ‘born in the cloud’, it’s a natural step in order to maintain or regain competitive advantage while also enhancing security and compliance for your business as markets, regulations and customer demands change. However, in order to make these opportunities a reality, you need to organize a migration of your existing archives. It needs to be a seamless, accurate process with no hidden surprises, and it must maintain legal chain of custody over your data as well as limiting the impact on your business operations. So, where do you turn?

man working on archive migration-2

Moving to the Cloud: What are Your Options?

There are two main ways to move your legacy archive to the cloud, but only one that provides the benefits of cloud computing in its truest sense. The first option is to use Software as a Service (SaaS) archiving, like solutions provided by Mimecast and Global Relay. While solutions of this kind might seem like the simple way to go, they do come at the cost of security, access, accountability, and control over your data. The second option is to migrate your data to a true hyperscale cloud that offers complete flexibility and enhanced security. 

Option 1: A SaaS Solution

Moving to a SaaS archive might feel like you’ve shifted to the cloud, especially if you’re moving away from an on-premises environment, but the reality is very different. You’ll likely hear SaaS vendors claim they offer the best turn-key cloud archiving platforms, but SaaS archives restrict you from accessing the best features of the cloud due to their one-size-fits-all approach. Most don’t own their own datacenters, and so rent a cloud space in which they archive the data of multiple organizations. Why is this a problem? This is what’s known as a multi-tenant cloud, and it provides a significant drawback for the client – your encryption keys are controlled by the SaaS vendor and could be used across their SaaS clients. Because encryption keys could be re-used among many clients, data breaches and the associated regulatory issues are much greater. It also means that the SaaS vendor can access your company’s sensitive data at any time. 

archive migration typing

If you’re sharing a cloud with others, you don’t have control over a wide range of factors. The digital equivalent of shared office space, a SaaS-based archive means the vendor controls everything from security protocols and policies to the global location data is stored in and, crucially, the encryption keys that unlock your data. Proprietary wrappers also mean you can’t access your data effectively or use the latest tools to extract insight from your archive. This black box approach is a far cry from the features of the true public cloud and moves you into only a marginally better place than a legacy, on-premises archive. 

Common Concerns Over SaaS Archiving Solutions:

  • Little or no control over your data’s geographic location – data sovereignty
  • Data analysis and eDiscovery functionality is limited to “lowest common denominator” vendor-provided tools
  • Limited search options for audio, video and other non-email files
  • Little to no control over security policies
  • No access to encryption keys
  • Proprietary formats limit your ability to move your data

In a recent survey of global IT executives, including VPs, directors, and members of the C-suite at major corporations, only 19% of those surveyed believed 75% or more of their SaaS vendors met all of their security requirements. 70% stated they had been forced to make at least one security exception for a SaaS vendor. While many of these organizations are likely using popular SaaS products like Microsoft Office 365 and SalesForce, where the size and standing of the vendor might make the business more amenable to accepting a perceived lower risk, the clear takeaway is that SaaS solutions don’t provide the security standards modern organizations require. 

man working on archive migration 2

Elsewhere, on the topic of encryption keys, an astounding 95% of respondents believed it was important to control their own encryption keys, and 81% were uncomfortable with their SaaS vendors controlling them. However, 74% of those surveyed said they did not control the encryption keys for the majority of their SaaS solutions. This is a worrying statistic and one that many organizations will have to take steps to reverse as regulations continue to tighten and the threat of cybercrime grows. To that end, 92% of executives said they would need more security customization in the future, with 63% of them planning to retire SaaS applications that didn’t provide them control over encryption keys.

These statistics paint a clear picture of the business security landscape and the risk that the one-size-fits-all approach of SaaS vendors introduces. As the trend for security customization continues and scrutiny over data access and handling increases, SaaS solutions will become increasingly less palatable for businesses aiming to de-risk their operations. Instead, more secure and customizable solutions, such as those in the public cloud, will be sought.

Option 2: Your Own Public Cloud

The only way to ensure you retain complete control over your sensitive, archived data and can apply your own security standards and protocols, is to migrate to an archive hosted in your own secure hyperscale cloud. A public cloud environment, like those provided by Microsoft and Amazon, can provide you with full flexibility, unlimited access to your data, data storage in its native format, and the most advanced security features and controls. Using your own cloud not only enhances the security of your data but means you are able to do more with it, harnessing it to unlock insight using cutting-edge AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) tools. None of this is possible natively with a SaaS archive and highlights the true, uncompromised benefits that a public cloud archive can offer.

Take a look at what you get with an archive in the public cloud…

  1. Immediate access to your data in its native format
  2. Full control of where data is stored for data sovereignty
  3. Complete control over security, compliance, and privacy
  4. Flexibility and on-demand scalability – use only what you need
  5. Reduced upfront investment and predictable ongoing costs
  6. No need for legacy infrastructure and ongoing maintenance fees
  7. Faster, scalable eDiscovery searches and customizable regulatory controls
  8. Access to the latest AI and ML technology for data classification, mining, and analysis
  9. The ability to granularly search content within audio, video and social media files

Archive360 Open Archive vs SaaS Archives

Features SaaS Archives Open Archive
Infrastructure    
Host data in your corporate cloud
Security    
Protect Data with encryption keys
Compliance    
Meet SEC 17a-4 regulations
Meet GDPR Regulations Limited
Policy-driven records Limited
Compliant onboarding
Performance    
Active user-based pricing
Management    
Standard eDiscovery with case management
AI-powered eDiscovery
Manage any content/data type Limited
Records analysis, classification and management Limited
Policy-driven records classification and transformation
Data Loss Prevention and sensitive data analysis alerts
Export and produce data for third party consumption
Role-based access with Active Directory Integration Limited
Native import and export with O365, SharePoint Online and OneDrive Limited
Onboarding    
Accelerated onboarding at 50 TB per day
Restore legacy archives back to native format
Pricing    
Active user-based pricing
Interactive Users - free of charge (restrictions apply)

The Fastest, Most Accurate Archive Migration

Weighing up providers when it comes to your migration is an important step to determine what you do with the terabytes of data stored in your existing archive. While a number of migration vendors exist, including QuadroTech and Transvault, we believe that the key is a high performance email migration tool that can not only move your data to the cloud at the highest possible speed but ensure the migration is complete, accurate and that chain of custody is maintained. Your next steps should also include deciding on how you will decommission your legacy infrastructure, how email that has been stubbed or shortcut will be accessed, whether archiving or journaling is the right decision for you, and if you will move your existing data to a cloud-based solution like Office 365. Archive360 can handle each of these elements for you as part of a complete package, including archive migration, records classification, stub rehydration, and beyond to archiving and journaling, all in your own open archive that you control.

Archive Migration

Our combination of experience and cloud-based automation is going to make you look really good.

  • Complete chain-of-custody and exception reporting down to the item level
  • Advanced features for managing your stubs to ensure your end-users experience zero disruption
  • Unique approach to handling journal archives your legal and compliance teams will appreciate
  • Many destination options including Office 365 and dozens of other cloud-based and on-premises archives

Open Archiving

We interviewed 1,100 customers to learn what they loved and hated about their legacy archive and used that insight to create a completely new kind of archive platform.

  • More secure: If you don't control your encryption keys, you don't control your data. With our archive, only you have access to your encryption keys.
  • More private: Privacy laws require you to retain data in the region it was created. SaaS archives don't do that. Our archive automatically stores employee and customer data in the country of origin.
  • More insight: Your archive holds incredible insight that until now has been trapped in a black box. Our archive empowers you to extract intelligence from your emails, files and videos for the first time.

Common Questions When Moving Away from McAfee MX Logic

With more than a thousand successful archive migrations completed, Archive360 knows a thing or two about the migration process. Our years of experience enable us to dispel your fears and answer any questions you might have as you begin your journey to the cloud. Such questions might include...

  • How much data do I actually have in my archive and what kind of data is it?
  • How much “dark data” do I have (such as archived messages from inactive users and leavers)?
  • Do I need to migrate the entire archive and/or the journal archive?
  • What happens to messages that have been stubbed?
  • I have ongoing or pending litigation; can I still migrate my mail?
  • How do I manage archived email that is under legal hold? What special handling is needed to maintain chain of custody?
  • Will I be able to account for 100% of my archived mail?
  • How long will the migration take?
Learn More

Archive360 Email Migration Software Product Highlights

Archive360 offers the most trusted email archive migration solution available, specifically designed for the McAfee MX Logic archive. Fully integrated with the solution’s APIs for faster, more accurate extractions, Archive360 extracts messages and attachments, including all metadata, directly from the archive and maintains an item-level audit trail for compliance and legal reporting. It also preserves complete, original message fidelity for eDiscovery and regulatory information requests.

Archive360’s MX Logic Migration Details

  • Utilizes a multi-threaded, multi-server architecture
    Provides the highest performance and accuracy of all migration solutions]
  • Uses native McAfee MX Logic Web APIs
    Enables search and filtering of emails by custodian, date range and other criteria
  • Does not require indexing or data gathering before extraction
    Begin message extraction within minutes of installation unlike other solutions that take days or weeks to index before project start
  • Message level chain of custody reporting
    Legally defensible reporting reduces eDiscovery risk
  • Intuitive and powerful graphical user interface
    Less time needed for training – faster time to migration

The Cloud Archive Organizations Trust

Archive360 provides the cloud archive trusted by enterprises and government agencies worldwide, purpose-built to run in the hyperscale cloud. Installed and run from your organization’s individual public cloud, you retain all the power, flexibility, and management while maintaining complete control of your data and its security, including encryption keys that only you have access to. Additionally, unlike on-premises and SaaS archiving solutions, you are free to unlock valuable insights via data analytics and carry out powerful searches on your data using the latest cloud-based tools that will benefit multiple teams across your business, from HR to legal and compliance.  Find out why major, regulated organizations around the world trust Archive360’s cloud-based information management and archiving solution with their most valuable data. Get in touch to request a demo today.

Archive Migration Connectors

Archive360 has successfully helped more than 2,000 customers extract data from 20+ enterprise archives, legacy applications, and file system repositories, including the following:
(click on the link for more information)