In the current day, most companies will have acknowledged the need for backups and archiving solutions. Especially archives are an absolute necessity for modern companies seeking to maintain compliance with a variety of legal regulations (including GDPR, eDiscovery and legal hold requirements) and a key factor in helping prevent interruptions to their business due to technical mishaps or data loss.
This being said, current users of archiving solutions are often not fully informed of the shortcomings of their systems or have not reflected on how well their current archive actually meets the needs of strict legal regulations. Many companies have been utilizing the same archive for a lengthy period of time, storing their big data without fully considering the extent to which times have changed and if their existing systems still meet all the challenges a changing business environment presents.
These questions will help gain an insight into the status of your solution, how well it functions, and how well your current product meets your business needs. We will help you reflect on your current archiving status: Try to answer these questions and see if answering them provides you with a confident feeling about your backup or archiving software.
Most relevant questions connected to your archive and backup solutions:
- Are your archived data easily accessible and are you able to find and use your old information or files further anytime you need them?
- Is your data really being protected against cyber threats?
- Is your data protected against accidental or deliberate deletion by your employees?
- How about purposeful data deletion – can your system comply with GDPR requirements on identifying and deleting sensitive data if this type of legal request occurs?
- How is the support from your provider’s side and his availability? Are you informed and updated about your solution? Is your provider continuing to evolve their solution to meet the needs of the current environment?
- Does your solution for archiving Microsoft 365 provide an optimized method of administration viewing all archived and related data in a modern, united and centralized client?
- If you use Microsoft archive for MS Exchange and your data, are you aware of the limitations and recommendations Microsoft puts in place?
contentACCESS archive offers all you need to archive and backup your data
Our archiving solution has been developed specifically to ensure that not only the market’s needs, but also our customers’ demands are fulfilled. So, let’s move on to the first of our crucial questions.
1. Are archived data in contentACCESS easily accessible, and are you able to find and use all historical information or files anytime you need them?
The answer, of course, is yes. Search systems are a key aspect of modern archives. Over the past decade, the amount of data generated has ballooned massively even for small companies. We provide you with the latest modern features such as our full-text search or the ability to set filters, the better to organize search results for you and streamline the process. If your existing archive has not kept their search system up to date, it may struggle with the sheer amount of information and fail to provide it to the end user effectively. With contentACCESS, you get an optimally structured and intelligent archive either via the cloud, on-premises, or hybrid.
2. Are your data being protected against cyber threats? What features and settings does your archive offer to mitigate risks?
Cyber security questions are perhaps the most pertinent; some among you may recall the cyberattack against Emil Frey AG last year, which was only one of many. With contentACCESS, you get the option for encryption of your data to ensure only verified users with authentication can receive access to it. We also provide an extra layer of security via our API connection, maintaining isolation between the server and the storage or database. contentACCESS’s long term secure archiving algorithms including data encryption and intelligent deduplication will completely secure and save the digital assets of your company. We offer a solution that will ensure business continuity, minimizing the risk and overwhelming every occasional threat.
3. Is your data protected against accidental or deliberate deletion by employees?
Not all cases of data being compromised come from outside your company. One of the most common causes of data loss is a deletion which originated internally. Employees can delete files accidentally during the normal course of their work. Alternatively, dissatisfied employees may deliberately erase files. In either case, it is imperative for your company that you are capable of restoring the files with a minimum of disruption to your business. With contentACCESS you can easily identify missing files and access or restore them. We offer general read-only access for employees to their personal data via officeGATE integrated in MS Outlook. So with contentACCESS, the risks to your data internally are a matter of past.
4. How about data deletion – can your system comply with GDPR requirements on identifying and deleting sensitive data? Who in your company has the rights and know-how to perform these tasks?
One simple answer: contentACCESS complies with all regulations and requirements. We touched on GDRP and eDiscovery briefly above. In general terms these boil down to a set of expectations: a company has to be able to keep their stored information clearly organized, with a set of retention and management policies in keeping with legal practices. To add to this, the company is expected to be able to provide any data from a given user or a given date upon request under eDiscovery regulations, and under GDPR may expect to receive requests for certain data to be removed entirely. The company is also obliged to set specific data on legal hold, avoiding their deletion, while being in a litigation process.
All of the questions above are the rationale for our solution’s GDPR module, which addresses precisely these points and concerns. Based on keywords, you receive the search results of all relevant archived data including the precise location, greatly streamlining the process.
5. How is the support from your backup provider’s side – do you feel your data is secured and that you are being kept in the loop?
Many of our clients came to us because of their dissatisfaction in this regard. Companies providing archiving solutions have not maintained their ability to fluidly and rapidly respond to developing issues. Rapidity of response and its effectiveness can make the difference between a hiccup in the system and a major lapse in coverage. This is something we can guarantee. We always provide you with updates to the newest version of our archive, ensuring that your system continues to reflect the most current developments in the archiving environment.
The effectiveness of your providers’ response isn’t the only key factor. The speed makes the difference! When you have questions or an issue arises in your system, it may be a trivial fix – but how hard is it to get ahold of the support you need, when you need it? We guarantee a fast response time and give all our customers equal access to premium in-person support rather than parceling it off as an optional – and paid – extra.
6. Does your solution for archiving Microsoft 365 provide an optimal method of administration viewing all archived and related data in a modern united centralized client?
contentACCESS provides it all. We built our platform as a native archiving solution for Microsoft 365. Many alternate solutions will divide their archived data by source, isolating individual segments of the Microsoft 365 environment from one another. This reduces the efficiency of anyone working with the system as they are unable to smoothly view all related material without moving from one client to another.
There are many possibilities to visualize and work with the data archived in contentACCESS: you can use officeGATE (Outlook add-in) to see the data directly in Outlook. With the contentACCESS Portal application you can view items archived by contentACCESS via a web browser. Our contentACCESS Mobile client provides access for your smartphone. And contentACCESS Central Administration is our user interface for administrators, via which they can configure contentACCESS; through this interface they can create new automated jobs to process company data, adjust the framework feature settings, set up schedulers, databases and storages, or create clusters. It also supports multi-tenancy.
7. If you use Microsoft archive for MS Exchange and your data, are you aware of the limitations and recommendations Microsoft puts in place?
Microsoft Exchange users will often gravitate towards Exchange Online Archiving. It seems like a logical solution, seeing as it is closely tied to the remainder of their active program suite. However, there are a few key aspects many users forget to take into account. First and foremost among these is that Microsoft themselves states that they do not take responsibility for the safety of archived data and recommend users find a third-party solution. Furthermore, Microsoft puts in place a limit on the size of their available archive; this is especially concerning for larger firms which generate more data and run the risk of exceeding their archive limit (remember – the legal environment often requires you to have data archived and accessible for a set period of years before it can be cleaned).
The modular contentACCESS archiving solution puts you on the best road to success
These were only few questions about archiving solutions, that need to be answered before you decide for a provider. Hopefully, we gave you some insights into the key aspects that we’ve discovered in our long years of providing support for our clients. We stand behind our product and we can guarantee contentACCESS truly is the plan for your today and future business needs.
Take the opportunity and ask for a free consultation, we will be happy to show you our solution live and answer all your questions.
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