Making the Move From Legacy Archives to the Cloud
Solutions born in the cloud have long been a disruptive force in traditional markets. Those being disrupted have been quick to migrate their legacy archives in order to remain competitive and meet new regulatory requirements. In the cloud, organizations benefit from the power of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) as well as many other next-generation tools. They realize improved flexibility and scalability for their operations and can enhance control of their security environment, as well as utilize new capabilities – quickly. Put simply, many organizations are driving toward Digital Transformation and the cloud is no longer a ‘nice to have’ but a business imperative. The chances are you’re already weighing these benefits for your organization or are already using the cloud across some areas of your business. But in order to truly benefit from the cloud, a full migration of your legacy archiving system is required. A migration carried out in a legally defensible manner without the risk of data corruption or loss, inadvertent data deletion, end-user productivity issues, or damaging chain of custody will ensure your digital transformation strategy is successful and painless.
What are Your Options When Moving to the Cloud?
There are two main options available to you when it comes to moving away from a legacy on-premises archive. Firstly, you can opt for the seeming simplicity of a SaaS (Software as a Service) archiving solution like Mimecast or Smarsh, but lose out on control over your organization’s sensitive data, including what security protections you deem best, as well as keeping direct control of your company’s encryption keys.
Or, secondly, you can migrate your legacy archives to your organization’s own public cloud tenant and choose which archiving/information management solution you will rely on.
Option 1: Opting for a SaaS Solution
While SaaS vendors claim to offer the best turn-key cloud archiving platforms, what they actually provide is limited control over your data and no access to the incredible tools and features in a true, hyperscale cloud. The fact is, most SaaS archiving vendors don’t own their own datacenters. They use other third-party cloud platforms – a multi-tenant cloud. This puts you, the client, at a major disadvantage – your encryption keys are controlled by the SaaS vendor and could be shared across all of their other clients, providing security flaws that greatly increase your chances of unauthorized access. Like an office building, a shared cloud from your SaaS vendor means your organization exists alongside many others within the same environment and, to take the analogy a step further, the SaaS vendor also controls the keys to the front door. Because encryption keys could be reused among many clients, data breaches and the associated regulatory issues are much greater. This also means that the SaaS vendor can access your company’s sensitive data at any time – without you ever knowing.
This one-size-fits-all approach introduces a wide range of security and compliance concerns, while the limited nature of the platform prevents you from accessing and manipulating your data for search and analysis. Because many SaaS vendors store your files in their own proprietary format, your data is stored in what amounts to a data prison. SaaS vendors can charge huge “exit” fees if you ever want to move your data out of their SaaS cloud platform. In addition to this data ransoming, you are also unable to make use of cutting-edge solutions, such as new and emerging powerful data analytics capabilities or ML and AI technology to provide content-based auto-classification and supervision for accurate information management.
Ultimately, when it comes to content archiving in the cloud, SaaS solutions create numerous negatives, especially regarding security and flexibility, and offer minimal advantages over your existing on-premises solution. Instead, the various hyperscale Platform as a service (PaaS) cloud offerings provide the greatest direct control over your sensitive data.
Common SaaS Archiving Challenges:
- Little or no control over your data’s geographic location – data sovereignty
- Little to no control over security policies
- No access or control over encryption keys
- Proprietary formats limit your ability to move your data
- Limited search options for audio, video, and other non-email files
- Data analysis and eDiscovery functionality is limited to “lowest common denominator” vendor-provided tools
In a recent survey of global IT executives, including VPs, directors, and members of the C-suite at major corporations, only 19% of those surveyed believed 75% or more of their SaaS vendors met all of their security requirements. 70% stated they had been forced to make at least one security exception for a SaaS vendor. While many of these organizations are likely using popular SaaS products like Microsoft Office 365 and SalesForce (where the size and standing of the vendor might make the business more amenable to accepting a perceived lower risk) the clear takeaway is that third-party SaaS solutions don’t provide the security standards modern organizations require.
On the topic of encryption keys, an astounding 95% of respondents believed it was important to control their own encryption keys and 81% were uncomfortable with their SaaS vendors controlling them. However, 74% of those surveyed said they did not control the encryption keys for the majority of their SaaS solutions. This is a worrying statistic and one that many organizations will have to take steps to reverse as regulations continue to tighten and the threat of cybercrime grows. To that end, 92% of executives said they would require more security customization in the future, with 63% of them planning to retire current SaaS applications that don’t provide them control over encryption key creation and management.
These statistics paint a clear picture of the business security landscape and the risk that the one-size-fits-all approach of SaaS vendors introduces. As the trend for security customization continues and scrutiny over data access and handling increases, SaaS solutions will become increasingly less palatable for businesses aiming to de-risk their operations. Instead, more secure and customizable solutions, such as those in the public cloud, will be sought.
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Archive360 Email Migration Software Product Highlights
Archive360 offers the most trusted email archive migration solution available, specifically designed for MessageOne archives. Fully integrated with the solution’s APIs for faster, more accurate data extractions, Archive360 extracts messages and attachments, including all metadata, directly from the archive and maintains an item-level audit trail for compliance and legal reporting. Email stubs are rehydrated with the archived emails using a patented technology that ensures all stub metadata is recovered and recombined with the message ensuring full legal defensibility. It also preserves complete, original message fidelity for eDiscovery and regulatory information requests.
