Short Busser Needs Help

[Airgead]

Is there some budgert (ha!) to bring in some outside help on this? I'm assuming the boss wants this for legal reasons. You might want to point out that if you do this sort of thing wring you can end up in all sorts of trouble if you aren't actually retaining what you think you are retaining or if you are retaining more than you should be or doing it in a way that looks like you could be reading personall emails or any of a dozen other things that will get you in trouble. "Hey boss... this is hard and as you know I arrive on the short bus each morning..."

I'm sure there is a fellow BNer locally with the skills to help out at a fair price. I could do it but I'm guessing your boss wouldn't be interested in paying my fares and acommodation from Australia...Mind you if he is interested I wouldn't mind coming over and trying some of those beers we keep hearing about but can't get over here...

[Chad Anderson]

If we could pay somebody in beer, I am sure we could work something out.

Yes - we do have money available for support in setting this up, and we do have a company in mind that we will probably end up using. I'd like to do as much of it myself as possible though, even if it threatens my short bus status a little bit.

You are right - Our company could have to disclose e-mails and other electronic documents as part of e-discovery, and that is the primary thrust behind this. The way it was explained to me, we just want to keep all sent and received mail with all of the metadata information regardless of whether it is personal or work related. Our policy states that there is no "personal" e-mail when using the work e-mail, so could that really be a problem for us? Thank you for the warnings though - I will go over this with our lawyers to make sure we are doing it correctly.

If there are any IT consultants in the BN Army that are in the Denver area, let me know and we can talk.

David - it looks like we will be going the Exchange route, so I may be asking you for some help when we try to get this set up. I don't know when they want to move forward, but I will PM you or e-mail you for some assistance then. Thank you!!!

[bub]

If you are using exchange there are some "archiving" appliances out there that may make this easier for you.... I don't know what they are but I know they exist.

this is becoming a big thing with all businesses, including mine, with the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure you basically have to retain ALL email communications entering or leaving your business... for a long time, and if you can't come up with it in less than 90 days you are fucked.

Goddamn lawyers.

BUB

[Chad Anderson]

We are an Insurance Guaranty Fund (Think FDIC for Insurance Companies), so we are no strangers to lawyers). That is the way that I understood this whole "e-discovery" thing as well - we have to be able to produce all that comes in and out of our company.

What the fuck is an archiving appliance, Bub? Washer . . . dryer . . . toaster oven . . . turtle washer . . . I can't believe my company thinks I am an IT guy. It's like if Justin were hired as a brewer.

[bub]

In the computer industry an "appliance" is a computer that is specifically created for a job by the seller and the software is installed and preconfigured to do only those functions. basicly you don't have to install linux and configure all the shit and turn off the shit you don't want, it is sold to you with only those functions and an interface that turtle lovers can understand. Usually cost's more than "do it your self" but may be more optimized for your situation. Think brewing an all grain dopplebock and creating your own recipe vs extract kit.

Hint google the following email archive appliance
Barracuda and Message One are industry leaders in this stuff, I HAVE NOT USED EITHER I am just gathering this info from articles I have read etc.

Have Fun,
BUB

[SunkenBier]

If your going the exchange route you will have extra costs you will need to consider.

Antivirus such as symantec for exchange server. This will scan all incoming mail on the server side so viruses do not penetrate through the mail.

Antispam software. I tweaked the rules in our mail and filtered out 95% of the mail. We were recieving over 3 million mails a day that were spam. This is beneficial in that you will not have to save and archive all the spam. This saves on backup times and disk space.