Seeing growing customer demand for eDiscovery, Records Management, and Compliance solutions for cloud-based data, StoredIQ has announced support for cloud-based Exchange and SharePoint residing within Microsoft Office 365 (formerly Microsoft Business Productivity Office Suite – BPOS). With this extended capability, Microsoft Office 365 customers can utilize StoredIQ to gain the same deep visibility and understanding of their cloud-based email and SharePoint data as they do with StoredIQ’s on-premise information governance solutions.

Customers, including a major U.S. car manufacturer, are using StoredIQ to quickly connect to Microsoft Office 365 to identify, collect and manage Exchange email and SharePoint data for responding to eDiscovery requests, applying records policies, and adhering to regulatory compliance mandates. As a result, StoredIQ provides enterprises with actionable information governance solutions to realize the benefits of cloud computing while still fulfilling their legal and compliance requirements.

According to 451 Research, cloud computing continues to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 24 percent and will reach $16.7 billion in revenue by 2013.

As enterprises continue moving data to the cloud, information governance challenges are becoming more complex. StoredIQ’s Platform connects to Microsoft Office 365 and indexes its data, combining the ability to identify, collect, and manage cloud-based data for legal discovery and records management into an integrated information governance application as a means of preempting litigation and reducing potential legal risks associated with cloud data storage.

– David Horrigan, analyst, eDiscovery and information governance at 451 Research

As a way to minimize storage costs and IT investments, we are seeing more and more customers move data to the cloud. Whether on-premise or in the cloud, StoredIQ can provide a highly scalable solution for governing all enterprise data and ensure that data placed in the cloud is discoverable for litigation, regulatory inquiries, and records retention scheduling.

StoredIQ’s support for Microsoft Office 365 includes:

• Identification and collection of data from both Microsoft Exchange Online and Microsoft SharePoint Online
• Integration with Active Directory
• Auto–detection of both mailboxes and SharePoint sub-sites in the cloud
• Connection throttling to Microsoft Office 365 in order to maximize network efficiency
• Managed security and access, along with automatic activity and chain–of–custody reporting

For more information about our actionable information governance solutions – for on premise or cloud-based data – please email info@storediq.com.

According to an article by Mark Brunelli, Senior News Editor with SearchDataManagement.com, a growing number of organizations are realizing that data governance is more important than ever and will take center stage in 2012. Based on a SearchDataManagement.com 2011 Reader survey, 77% of respondents either have, or are planning to implement, a data governance program – a 9% increase over last year.

In the article, Brunelli interviews Sunil Soares, director of information governance with IBM’s software group. According to Soares, “It’s [information governance] a trend that shows no signs of slowing as 2012 approaches. The increase in awareness can be attributed to business users who are at last taking ownership of data. In other words, organizations have realized that data problems are business problems.”

Similarly, according to the 2011 eDiscoveryJournal and ViaLumina Information Governance Survey, most people view information governance as an umbrella for multiple disciplines including eDiscovery, records management, security, compliance, storage and archiving, risk management, and privacy. The majority of survey respondents revealed that they are investigating Information Governance and actively working to determine how to apply it to their organizations.

As 2012 looms near, new regulatory mandates such as FINRA 4511 and 4512, and the Dodd-Frank Act put a renewed focus on the need for information governance solutions. Fred Pulzello and Sonali Bhavsar wrote in an article for Information Management magazine, “Companies that proactively invest in establishing information governance policies, procedures, and technology will improve the efficiency of their compliance programs and will be in the best shape to adapt quickly to the new rules and regulations and manage the risks associated with doing business in this environment.”

StoredIQ provides actionable information governance solutions, enabling organizations to gain visibility and control over business-critical information to meet their eDiscovery, records management, compliance, and storage management requirements. With StoredIQ, legal, records managers, compliance officers, or IT can utilize a suite of purpose-built applications that arm them with the information intelligence needed to minimize the cost and risk of governing the ever increasing amount of unstructured data stored across the enterprise.

As 2012 approaches we’d like to know, what are some of the biggest information governance challenges your organization faces? eDiscovery, Storage Optimization, Compliance, Records Management? With StoredIQ, information governance doesn’t have to be a boil the ocean approach; ROI can be attained through existing IT and compliance initiatives, or trigger events like eDiscovery or regulatory response. So as you plan your 2012 information governance initiatives, there is great value in knowing what data you have and where it resides, whether the efforts are reactive or proactive, or apply to legacy data or new policies. Use of information intelligence technology like StoredIQ is critical to informing, improving, and maintaining adequate data governance.

I recently read an article in LTN, authored by Evan Kobletz, covering the Guidance product announcement – “Guidance Adds Data Re-use Feature to EnCase eDiscovery”. After some discussion at StoredIQ, we’re actually pretty excited about the coverage. It sheds light on capability that we’ve had for years now, and probably don’t talk enough about. In fact, the article also highlights several competitors that still don’t have it. The StoredIQ term for ‘Data Re-use’ is ‘Incremental, Single-Instance Collection’, but setting aside semantics, we believe it’s a fundamental component for conducting thorough, legally sound eDiscovery collections.

What does this mean to eDiscovery customers? The first time a file is relevant to a case, we’ll take a forensically sound copy and place it on a retention server for preservation with a litigation hold tag specific to the given matter, without altering the metadata and without interrupting end users. If it’s an ongoing case, we’ll perform incremental collections – meaning that we’ll only get another copy if that file has been changed (or if other new relevant files are created). When another case crops up, and the same file is once again relevant, StoredIQ is aware that the file is already on retention and instead of taking the time, bandwidth and storage space to collect another copy StoredIQ just places an additional hold tag on the file. If your company is in a highly litigious industry or has a number of serial litigants, you can imagine the savings this can add up to over time. Only when all matters for a given file are concluded, and the obligation for legal hold is removed, will the file be available for disposition from the repository.

Possibly because StoredIQ has had this capability for quite some time, we’ve taken for granted that incremental, single-instance collection is a standard feature of any intelligent eDiscovery technology that has a collections component. And more importantly, a feature that eDiscovery customers should consider closely. Note that the article also mentions that this feature also enables users to “search collection sets from previous litigation”. That statement alone makes me wonder how many case collections have been jeopardized by not having the capability to search and produce data from the preservation location used by previous and simultaneous, on-going cases?

On a broader scale, in the LTN article, Kobletz, states, “Data reuse is a growing trend in the e-discovery industry.” We at StoredIQ actually see ‘data reuse’, to use the same term, as a trend that goes well beyond eDiscovery. The same data that your legal team needs to identify and collect for a legal matter, is also the same data that your records management team needs to classify, your IT team needs to store and manage, and your compliance officers need to govern. At the end of the day, your corporate data is all being ‘re-used’ by multiple departments – not just the legal team for multiple matters.

What companies need is the ability to identify, classify, manage, and act on their data assets – to provide value across the entire organization. That’s something you won’t get from Guidance, or any point solution eDiscovery product. At StoredIQ, we’re focused on delivering powerful information governance products that can provide the comprehensive data insight and control that corporate counsel, compliance managers, and  records managers need to make the best and most informed decisions, while meeting the stringent requirements that IT departments demand.

Despite the high cost of its painstaking preservation and storage, much of this data will never be relevant to any legal case. Indeed, according to a 2009 survey by Framingham, Mass.-based IDC, 60 to 80 percent of the information retained by corporations in America has no value from a business or legal perspective.

Legal departments have historically focused on the ‘right side’ of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) – the analysis and review stages. However, if the quality of collected data in the review platform is unnecessary, insufficient, spoiled, or irrelevant; this significantly increases an organization’s legal cost and risk.

Kiker goes on to say… the best approach for many companies is to get serious about cleaning up their information environments. By “taking out the trash” in a major way, companies stand to make big cuts in their annual data-storage bills, which can also run into the six figures. This also enables them to more quickly and more accurately identify potentially relevant information for the attorneys to sift through during a review process, potentially lowering their legal bills.

Legal teams are increasingly realizing the business value and ROI from strengthening their company’s ‘left-side’ EDRM capabilities and understand that sound information governance practices result in highly targeted and effective eDiscovery.

The article points out that shrinking the overall stack of data is a good start to minimizing eDiscovery costs, but companies also need to find all the relevant information contained in their data. He says:

Data mapping offers a way to solve this problem. The basic idea is to create a master index that spells out exactly where content is stored. Surprisingly, many companies have never taken this critical information management step.

In fact, Barry Murphy was reflecting on the Carmel Valley eDiscovery Conference and commented in his blog: Get specific. Know where data lives and do the data maps.  It’s impossible to preserve data if you don’t know where it is.

At StoredIQ we couldn’t agree more. To prove it, during the month of August, StoredIQ is extending a promotional offer for our data assessment and mapping service. The first 10 qualified companies will pay only $10,000, a savings of $5,000 off list price.

StoredIQ Data Assessment Services provide unprecedented visibility into the unstructured data across the enterprise. This invaluable service quickly gives organizations critical understanding of their business content to make more informed decisions about the management, retention, and disposition of their data.

To learn more about this offer and to take the first step toward managing your escalating ESI-related costs and risk – contact us today!

Planning for FINRA Compliance
With the effective date only a few months away, broker-dealers will need to be prepared to show updated policies and procedures with supporting systems to be ready for their 2012 FINRA audit. Compliance officers should ask:

• Do we have the systems capabilities in place to identify, track and preserve the required records?
• Is now a good time to perform a holistic data assessment review of the information and records your firm currently has stored across all data repositories, content management systems and archives?
• Are you able to implement defensible data deletion policies as prescribed by the new FINRA requirements?
  Can your current data storage and archiving capabilities withstand the volumes for day-to-day reporting and historical archiving? If not, how can you strategically clean up your data storage?
• Will new technologies be needed to assist, and what does the implementation timetable look like to be in compliance by December?

Meeting FINRA Requirements with StoredIQ
StoredIQ’s Information Governance solution provides broker-dealers with a comprehensive, secure and efficient approach to meeting their FINRA information governance needs. With StoredIQ, companies can manage risk and contain costs by leveraging automated compliance and governance policies.  The result is an efficient and cost-effective answer for today’s highly regulated business world.

By implementing StoredIQ now and planning accordingly, broker-dealers can be in compliance by the December 5th FINRA implementation date and ready for a 2012 FINRA audit examination.

To learn more, download the StoredIQ FINRA Solution Sheet or contact us for more information.

Today StoredIQ announced that Tom Bishop has joined our executive management team as chief technology officer. A recognized and award-winning CTO, Tom brings over 30 years of experience in systems architecture, distributed computing and data management and will be responsible for StoredIQ’s product vision and direction. He is well known as a technology innovator and led the development of numerous industry standards. In 2004 Tom was recognized as “Chief Technology Officer of the Year” by InfoWorld magazine.

The growing size and complexity of the digital universe has created enormous challenges for corporations. However this creates a unique opportunity for StoredIQ. We can give companies the deep visibility and insight they need to better understand their data, and make better business decisions, while reducing costs and legal risks. With his experience and track record at developing enterprise platforms, Tom is the ideal person to lead the next generation of StoredIQ’s information management solutions.

Tom was the former chief technology officer of IBM Tivoli, where he created and led Tivoli’s distributed systems management technology and products. After Tivoli, Tom served as CTO of VIEO, Inc., where he was named “Chief Technology Officer of the Year” by InfoWorld magazine. As vice president and chief technology officer at BMC Software, Tom was responsible for product vision and direction, including advancing Atrium, the company’s innovative open-architected foundation for Business Service Management solutions. Most recently Tom served as CTO of IronStratus (formerly Conformity) and prior to Conformity he was vice president of engineering for Storspeed.

As Nick Negroponte predicted, the value of enterprise computing is becoming much less about atoms – managing the systems that do work – and much more about bits – managing the applications and information — the true future of the business in the 21st century. StoredIQ is delivering the solutions that enable organizations to make this critical and fundamental transition. I am thrilled to be a part of StoredIQ’s executive leadership team, and looks forward to helping drive the innovation and technology direction for the full range of StoredIQ’s information management solutions.

– Tom Bishop, CTO, StoredIQ

To learn more about StoredIQ, visit our website or email us at info@storediq.com.

Speakers for the webinar will include eTERA Consulting’s John Rubens, Managing Director of Corporate Analysis; Alan Brooks, Vice President of Marketing; and StoredIQ’s Amir Jaibaji, Director of Product Management. The webinar is part of eTERA Consulting’s ongoing series of training and education initiatives to help clients stay abreast of critical issues surrounding electronic discovery and electronically stored information (“ESI”).

In this complimentary webinar, attendees will learn about:

• SharePoint’s expanding presence within organizations
• How SharePoint’s increasing social media capabilities challenge standard preservation and forensic collection
• How case law such as Pension Committee and Victor Stanley is relevant to SharePoint legal hold and preservation
• Understanding the SharePoint environment through the eTERA Consulting and StoredIQ Risk Assessment Program

The complimentary webinar will take place on Tuesday, May 24 at 2:00 pm EDT / 1:00 pm CDT. To reserve a webinar seat now, please visit the registration page. For additional information please email info@storediq.com.

As is the case with most organizations these days we were faced with a growing amount of electronic data across our enterprise and needed to ensure complete control of that information. With StoredIQ we better understand the state of our data and work in tandem with our legal team, so they can formulate legal strategies earlier in the process and as a result significantly reduce eDiscovery-related cost.

– Carol Campbell-Larson, executive vice president and CIO, information systems at MGM

Every company deals with exponentially growing data volumes, but the entertainment industry is unique when it comes to eDiscovery and IP protection. Disputes over copyright, trademark, right of publicity and idea submission claims – to name just a few – are ever-present in the motion picture business. MGM is one of the forward-thinking companies who have moved the eDiscovery process in-house and are proactively managing their information to protect their data assets to reduce related risk and cost.

Market-leading companies like MGM use StoredIQ to respond rapidly and efficiently to legal matters, litigation, and investigations. Utilizing StoredIQ, corporate legal teams can locate, analyze and act upon unstructured electronically stored information much more comprehensively and efficiently. As a result, companies can better manage their legal risk and reduce expenses, while formulating superior legal strategies. With StoredIQ, MGM and other companies can:

• Proactively manage their corporate data assets to meet their eDiscovery and regulatory compliance mandates
• Quickly locate matter-relevant ESI with advanced search technology
• Analyze electronic documents “in the wild”, where they natively reside without having to move data to a separate location
• Leverage a user-friendly legal and IT workflow and a scoreboard that keeps track of review costs as data is identified, preserved and collected
• Preserve and collect only the smallest legally defensible dataset to a secure legal hold repository, preserving all metadata and context
• Perform first-pass reviews on documents before exporting data downstream
• Act on and manage potentially relevant data in a legally defensible manner with audit trails and a robust chain of custody.

With StoredIQ, MGM streamlines eDiscovery, leverages early case analysis and reduces cost while proactively managing their IP data assets.

To learn more about StoredIQ, visit our website, or email us at info@storediq.com.

“While the debate on the usefulness and effectiveness of ECA continues, it should be noted that how the term is defined continues to evolve. Some of the service providers adapted quickly enough to have ECA as part of their “arsenal” a few years ago. Many of these tools were designed to filter metadata after collection and help the company decide how much a case will cost. This is a noble objective, but not completely in line with the original intent of ECA — which was to help an organization determine its risk exposure and make strategic decisions about a case based on that analysis.”

We couldn’t agree more. In fact, we’ve been talking about the importance of performing ECA at an earlier phase of the EDRM for a while now. We believe that for ECA to have its greatest potential impact it needs to be performed during the identification phase of EDRM, prior to collections. StoredIQ’s ECA technology, Analyze Anywhere, indexes unstructured electronic data and makes it available for searching and analysis without affecting metadata or content, prior to any movement or collection of data.  This ability to do ECA on data “in the wild” allows legal counsel to assess the merits of a dispute, formulate a legal strategy, and make decisions concerning the matter significantly faster than post-collection ECA. Additionally, it makes the data set that is ultimately produced for downstream, formal review not only qualitatively enriched and context aware, but also considerably smaller, thereby significantly reducing legal costs and risks. According to Rudoy:

“The premise of early case assessment is to give legal teams the ability to conduct up-front, fast, intelligent data gathering, with probative queries on the dataset to reduce it to a relevant universe that can be assessed.  Legal teams have a need to see “what they got” faster than what traditional EDD services typically can provide. “

StoredIQ can form threads, comparisons, relationships and statistics much faster than human reviewers can. Our user interface includes dynamic visuals, detailed reports and an intuitive dashboard to accomplish in-depth analysis of once unwieldy amounts of discovered data.  As the data set is culled —by custodian, file type, email domain, date range, key terminology, etc. — the StoredIQ Scoreboard presents a running count of the files retained (and eliminated from consideration) and automatically calculates the potential savings from the downstream review cycle.

By accomplishing ECA near the beginning of the eDiscovery workflow, ECA finally achieves the goals it originally set out to accomplish for improved legal strategy decisions and cost reduction.

“U.S. court discovery has become one of Chevron Corporation’s favorite tools to try to undermine the gargantuan environmental damages suit filed against the oil company by tribespeople in Ecuador for alleged pollution of the Amazon jungle.”

Law.com called Chevron’s legal strategy an “unprecedented discovery campaign,” in which the defendant attempted to use a wide variety of discovery rules, including a failed effort to block discovery with the First Amendment, and several rulings under the obscure law 28 U.S.C. section 1782 that provides for U.S. discovery in aid of foreign proceedings.

In another recent case, Simerly v. Pulte, sanctions were ordered against Georgia-based developer Pulte Home Corp. for destroying emails and other electronic evidence related to an environmental lawsuit. With attorney fees and costs expected to total $400,000, this will be the largest spoliation case in Georgia history, reported Law Technology News.  The investigation into spoliation began when a Pulte executive admitted in a deposition that he had deleted emails related to the case and that he intended to continue to do so. According to the judge:

“Despite this court’s prior order prohibiting the continued deletion of emails, Pulte continued to engage in a pattern of … spoliation.”

These high-profile cases have brought eDiscovery issues to the forefront.  While allegations against Pulte claim willful deletion of evidence, it’s important for all organizations in litigation-prone industries to avoid accidental spoliation as well.  By adopting an intelligent eDiscovery solution, organizations can achieve the following benefits:

• Implement proactive eDiscovery, litigation-ready response capabilities
• Reduce the risk of government fines, court sanctions and negative verdicts
• Contain the cost of electronic discovery
• Make better, faster legal decisions based on real-time information and analytics

We’ll be watching to see how these cases unfold.