New Whitepaper: Actionable Information Governance – Gaining Immediate Value and ROI from Enterprise Data

The growing volume and greater dispersion of data, new methods of collaboration, and the emergence of new internet-based applications pose their own challenges to finding and utilizing information most effectively. Combined with legal, regulatory, and privacy directives, data governance has become an increasing challenge for enterprise organizations. A new white paper from Enterprise Strategy Group addresses how corporations can turn Information Governance from a priority into reality.

Take action. Start governing.

This paper addresses some of the most common use cases for deploying information governance solutions including: eDiscovery, Compliance, Storage Optimization, Data Mapping, and Data Migration—focusing on the immediate ROI and long-term impact. Download the ESG whitepaper and take a step toward actionable information governance:

• Determine what data you have and where it is
• Clean-up trash and de-duplicate data
• Analyze contents and access patterns to determine appropriate policy
• Migrate data to the appropriate storage tier for greater cost efficiency
• Enforce policy for retention and deletion, potentially expiring what’s beyond usefulness or mandated compliance retention

‘Boil-the-ocean’ approaches stall many information management projects. Companies can gain more immediate near-term benefit and ROI by tying actionable information governance to other high-priority large-scale IT initiatives. Tackling an immediate and acute project like eDiscovery or regulatory response, storage optimization, or records management initialization can be an opportunity for ‘go-forward clean-up’ by adding elements of good information governance and better data management.

– Katey Wood, analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group

The ESG whitepaper is available from the StoredIQ website at www.info.storediq.com/esg

For information about how StoredIQ can provide actionable information governance solutions for eDiscovery, records management, compliance, and storage optimization, email info@storediq.com.

StoredIQ Extends Information Governance to the Cloud with Support for Microsoft Office 365

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.

eDiscovery: Incremental, Single-Instance Collections vs. Data Re-Use

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.