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E-mail trumps Word in data recovery roulette

mailbox content more valuable to executives than all other business critical files

July 03, 2008

Half of UK executives would save their e-mail mailbox over all other business files if given the choice.

Kroll Ontrack®, the world leader in data recovery, surveyed a cross-section of business executives to discover what type of data individuals in businesses consider to be vital. Despite the majority of workers now using electronic address books, 81 percent of those questioned would save actual messages rather than any personal contact details.

The logistics required to restore a large e-mail system is complex, and due to its critical nature, downtime needs to be minimised. For this reason, many companies are capping the storage capacity of user mailboxes and inadvertently increasing the risk of users losing their e-mails. IT managers need to ensure that users aren’t simply overcoming the capping directive by storing their mailboxes locally on workstations. In order to minimise data loss when an e-mail system goes down, e-mail information needs to be backed up on a server and retrieval plans must be regularly tested.

When it comes to storing data, IT leaders are being urged to bear in mind, both its priority and importance. In light of this research, Kroll Ontrack put together some top tips to e-mail bliss for executives.

1. Manage your mailbox don’t let it manage you - keep it under control with regular housekeeping and archiving of old e-mails. Evaluate the importance of each e-mail and erase e-mails that you do not need. This will keep the mailbox size, and the risk of loss, at a minimum.

2. Prepare – a disaster recovery plan will outline company policy and procedures for when it all goes wrong. If you don’t know what your firm’s disaster strategy is – ask!

3. Don’t store e-mails locally – many executives store their oversized mailboxes locally, where it is not backed up. The safest archival method is to move items to a central drive that is regularly backed up.

4. Seek advice - in the event that you accidentally delete the wrong message, your IT department should have a process to quickly retrieve the message from its backups. If this is a more serious issue, then tampering with the computer may limit what data can be retrieved.

Executive quote

"Our statistics reveal that e-mails are the most important files for business executives,” said Phil Bridge, Managing Director, Kroll Ontrack UK. “Regardless of the size of IT budgets, organisations simply cannot afford to ignore implementing systems to help avoid severe data loss. Employee education, careful planning and rigorous backup testing of e-mail storage is the only way critical information is protected."

About the company

About Kroll Ontrack (www.ontrackdatarecovery.co.uk)
The research was conducted amongst 170 business IT managers using an online survey.
Data Recovery
Through its Ontrack® Data Recovery products and services, Kroll Ontrack is the largest, most experienced and technologically advanced provider of data recovery products and services worldwide. Using its hundreds of proprietary tools and techniques, Ontrack Data Recovery helps businesses and consumers recover lost or corrupted data from all types of operating systems and media and storage devices through its do-it-yourself, remote and in-lab capabilities.
About Kroll Ontrack Inc.
Kroll Ontrack provides technology-driven services and software to help legal, corporate and government entities as well as consumers recover, search, analyse, produce and present data efficiently and cost-effectively. In addition to its award-winning suite of software, Kroll Ontrack provides data recovery, advanced search, paper and electronic discovery, computer forensics, ESI consulting, and trial consulting and presentation services. Kroll Ontrack is a technology services division of Kroll Inc., the global risk consulting company. For more information about Kroll Ontrack and its offerings please visit: www.ontrackdatarecovery.co.uk

Contact details

Account Manager at LEWIS, the PR agency
Tel: +44 (0) 161 601 7740 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7802 2627
Email: ontrackuk@lewispr.com
Website: www.lewispr.com

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E-mail trumps Word in data recovery roulette

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