Take Back Control of Your Data and Boost Your Business in the Cloud
The OpenText AXS-One Archive was once all you needed for collecting, archiving and reviewing your Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes emails, facilitating eDiscovery, and maintaining compliance with regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and the Securities and Exchange Commission Rules (SEC Rule 17a-4 & Rule 17a-3).
However, as regulatory requirements and the demands of modern business have changed, legacy archiving software, such as OpenText AXS-One Archive, Enterprise Vault, and GWAVA Retain, haven’t kept pace with the times, forcing their developers and customers to create risky workarounds or, in the case of MX Logic and Mimosa NearPoint, drop support altogether.
The time has come to look for alternatives, and, as is the case for many, corporate digital transformation initiatives (such as the adoption of cloud-based tools like Microsoft Office 365 and Gmail) make cloud-based archiving a much more attractive prospect.
Migrating from an on-premises archive to the cloud provides a way to not only handle all of your historical archiving needs but to unlock many new opportunities for your business, as well as providing flexibility and scalability as your requirements shift and your organization grows.
Understanding the Difference Between the Real Cloud and a SaaS ‘Kind of’ Cloud
When it comes to migrating your legacy archives to the cloud, two main options exist. The first is to choose a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution, like those offered by Mimecast and Smarsh. While solutions of this kind might seem like the simple way to go, they do come at the cost of security, access, accountability, and control over your data. The second and far superior option is to migrate to your own public cloud tenant, where you can experience all the benefits of the cloud without compromising control or limiting your security options. Let’s take a look at these two options in more detail…
Option 1: The SaaS Archiving Solution
You’ll likely hear SaaS vendors claim that they offer the best turn-key cloud archiving platforms. While it’s true that your data will be stored in the cloud, that’s where the similarities to true cloud archiving end. It’s a fact that most SaaS vendors don’t own their own datacenters, opting instead to rent part of a public cloud and store all of their customers’ data within it. This is what’s known as a multi-tenant cloud, and it provides a significant drawback for the client – your encryption keys are controlled by the SaaS vendor and could be used across their other clients. Because these encryption keys could be re-used 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.
This fact alone is a major security red flag for CISOs, but there are additional downsides to the SaaS model when it comes to security. Due to the multi-tenant, one-size-fits-all approach, moving to a SaaS archive means giving up control of a lot of things. You can’t set security policies specific to your business as they’re dictated by the vendor. Everything from the firewall in use to the vetting of third parties is controlled by your SaaS provider, reducing your security accountability and forcing you to make exceptions for one element of your IT footprint.
Additionally, by moving your data to a SaaS archive, you also lose control over what you do with it. With many SaaS vendors storing your files in their proprietary format, your data is stored in what amounts to a data prison, with huge charges incurred 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 powerful data analytics capabilities or ML (Machine Learning) and AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology to provide content-based auto-classification for accurate information management.
Ultimately, when it comes to content archiving, SaaS solutions create many negatives, especially regarding security and flexibility, and offer minimal advantages by comparison to the various hyperscale cloud offerings.
Some of the SaaS Archiving Challenges:
- No access to encryption keys
- Little to no control over security policies
- Limited search options for audio, video, and other non-email files
- Proprietary formats limit your ability to move your data
- Little or no control over your data’s geographic location – data sovereignty
- 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.
Elsewhere, 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.
These are worrying statistics and ones 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 need more security customization in the future, with 63% of them planning to retire SaaS applications that didn’t provide them control over encryption keys.
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 the OpenText AXS-One Archive. Fully integrated with the archive’s APIs for faster, more accurate extractions, Archive360 extracts messages and attachments, including all metadata, directly from the AXS-One archive and maintains an item-level audit trail for compliance and legal reporting. It also preserves complete, original message fidelity for eDiscovery and regulatory information requests.
