Magic Quadrant for E-Mail Active-Archiving Products, 2003
25 November 2003
Carolyn DiCenzo, David Mario Smith, Maurene Caplan Grey

Document Type:  Research Note
Note Number:  M-20-9637

Vendors have focused on solving a limited part of the problems with e-mail active archiving, resulting in few leaders and visionaries.

What You Need to Know

Companies with installed records management systems should choose an e-mail archiving product that will integrate with the installed solution. Others should view the purchase as a tactical solution, knowing that records captured by these solutions will provide a base of information that can be linked or transferred to the longer-term solution when it is defined and implemented. Although clients should proceed with caution here, as requirements are changing and solutions remain immature, the need to meet regulatory requirements may mean that enterprises will have to invest in an e-mail active-archiving system immediately. Waiting until the industry and technology mature may not be an option.

Analysis

Managing electronic records is a good business practice that many companies are being pushed to by legislation or increased enforcement of laws. Every industry worldwide has records management requirements. Canada has Universal Market Integrity Rules for Canadian Marketplaces, the United Kingdom has Data Protection and Freedom of Information Act, and France has Conseil des Marches Financiers’ Decision 99-05, to name a few. Printing documents has served as the electronic records management solution for some companies, but with the growth in the volume of e-mail (40 percent per year) and instant messaging, management tools are required. Most records and document management vendors offer tools to manually or semiautomatically move a set of messages to its archives, but the need to ensure that every message has been captured requires a different set of tools. E-mail active-archiving vendors support record retention and management requirements relating to e-mail messages with products that do the following:

• Automate the capture and archive of e-mail messages entering and leaving the enterprise, plus messages between users on an individual e-mail server and across internal e-mail servers, as unique, indexed records
• Provide the end user the option of accessing the archive via a Web or through the e-mail client
• Include auditing to track access to archived records
• Support the secure storage of increasingly large archives, offering multiple storage options for the archive, including disk, optical, tape, write once, read many (WORM) tape, and emerging devices, especially those targeted at content storage such as EMC Centera and Network Appliance NearStore with SnapLock
• Exploit hierarchical storage management (HSM) technology to automatically remove messages from the active e-mail data storage for more efficient operation
• Offer migration tools and temporary offline local options to eliminate the storage of e-mail messages in personal folder storage outside the control of the archive system
• Package or integrate with tools to manage the discovery process, narrowing the search and managing the steps needed to deliver records
• Include basic records management features or integrate with a robust records management solution to manage the life cycle of the records to ensure proper retention and deletion
• Package tools for sampling and management of the compliance process

Many enterprises are looking for a quick fix to a specific problem. Increasingly, the project scope is being expanded to integrate multiple requirements. While most vendors on the e-mail active-archiving Magic Quadrant are focused on a niche solution, some have begun to deliver broader solutions, and others are beginning to build road maps.

Identifying vendors for this Magic Quadrant was challenging, as many more promised products than were able to deliver. Solutions are available from a global mix of vendors. Vendors had to offer a robust solution and demonstrate an installed base that could be referenced. For more information, see "E-Mail Active-Archiving Product Magic Quadrant Criteria." Updates to this Magic Quadrant will include many other vendors, and some will disappear as they are acquired or decide not to participate in the broader market. Service providers will be covered separately. Figure 1 shows the Magic Quadrant for e-mail active-archiving products in 2003.

Figure 1

Magic Quadrant for E-Mail Active-Archiving Products, 2003

Source: Gartner Research (November 2003)

Leaders

KVS is the only leader with its Enterprise Vault for Microsoft Exchange. The company is early to market with an e-mail data management solution and has been able to leverage early partnerships with Hewlett-Packard and EMC to gain market visibility. The company released major functionality at the end of 2002 to allow it to better manage archive storage and added an application programming interface (API) to provide for better integration with storage and records management products. Basic compliance and discovery modules were added to allow the company to better support those requirements. The company is working to expand its portfolio to support file-system archiving.

Challengers

Legato, a division of EMC, upgraded its EmailXtender product in 2002 to better support the evolving compliance and discovery requirements. The product supports Exchange, Domino and Sendmail. The increased R&D funding and expanded support organization available from EMC will be a real plus, but it may take some time to see the benefit as EMC, Legato and Documentum merge. However, EMC is already investing in an expanded engineering team to focus on improved code quality and expand the support coverage, especially for the Domino version.

Visionaries

AXS-One entered the market this year, with a limited release of its AXS-One E-mail and Instant Messaging solution in March. While the company claims customers in the Domino and Exchange space, it has focused most of its early efforts on Domino. The company has been effective in teaming with early customers with complicated Domino requirements and strong compliance requirements to build a multifunctional product. The solution leverages its AXSPoint records management technology. The company's approach to the market has been cautious. Its challenge is to gain visibility and an expanded channel.

Niche Players

Many of the niche players are still working on product vision and delivery. Some are strong niche players, as defined by their go-to-market strategy. Others aspire to a broader market. Watch for more document and records management players to enter as niche players providing add-on modules for their installed bases:

• Educom TS, with its Educom Exchange Archive Solution (EAS), provides archiving for discovery and e-mail management. It does not offer the applications around compliance or specialized discovery tools beyond basic search capabilities. The company sells exclusively through channel partners, which limits its appeal in large accounts that want direct vendor access. The company will continue to provide the base offering, relying on its value-added resellers (VARs) to leverage the EAS APIs to integrate with other software providers to construct solutions for customers with expanded requirements.
• IXOS Software, soon to be acquired by Open Text, provides archiving for discovery and e-mail management. The company offers IXOS-eCONserver for Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes. IXOS has historically chosen to offer professional services to customers wanting expanded functions such as compliance or discovery modules. Recent announcements with StorageTek’s services organization and Hitachi Data Systems will allow those companies to use the IXOS product as a base for enterprises looking for a custom solution. As the company becomes part of Open Text, it will provide a more packaged offering, integrating with Open Text's solution and relying less on professional services.
• iLumin Software Services is a leading player in the compliance and discovery space, through its October 2002 acquisition of the Assentor product from SRA. iLumin is differentiated by the inclusion of a filtering engine that allows messages that contain questionable content to be quarantined for review. Its filtering engine is based on natural language processing. An expanded solution for discovery support was added in mid-2003. Although the company does have tools for extracting messages sent between mailboxes on the same server, stronger internal message capture and e-mail management is on its road map. IBM and iLumin signed an agreement in September that will allow IBM to resell and integrate its solution with Assentor, giving IBM the compliance solution it needs. As part of that agreement, IBM and iLumin will work on an improved e-mail data solution that iLumin will be able to leverage.
• IBM has a basic e-mail data management and discovery product with its IBM DB2 CommonStore for Lotus Domino and Exchange Server. The initial product was used for selective movement of messages to either an OnDemand or Content Manager-based archive. Recent releases that have added automatic archiving capabilities and more enhancements are planned as part of the partnership with iLumin. As the two companies complete initial integration work, expect IBM to lead with the iLumin product as the main offering.
• Tumbleweed offers a compliance solution, Tumbleweed Message Monitor (formerly Secure Archive), which is an extension of its e-mail firewall product, Tumbleweed Messaging Management System (MMS). The company captures the messages as they come through the MMS system and has some basic tools for compliance supervision and sampling. Expect Tumbleweed to fall further behind this market as it focuses more of its resources on its anti-spam and e-mail firewall products.
• Connected Corporation acquired Archive-it and its MailStore product for Exchange in November. The product provides e-mail archiving for discovery and is being sold by resellers such as Bridgehead Software in the United Kingdom and IntelliReach (under the name MessageArchive) in the United States. Expect Connected to use this product as a base for an offering that will provide the company an opportunity to add value and increase revenue from its installed base of PC backup customers, as well as allowing them to target new customers.
• Information Management Research (IMR)-licensed technology used in CC Data’s e-MARC e-mail archiving and discovery solution has assumed the customer base, offering an expanded solution with the August release of MailStore for Exchange. The basic automated e-mail capture product can be sold separately or as an add-on to the IMR Alchemy document management product and is targeted at companies with between 50 and 1,500 mailboxes. Expect IMR to improve the e-mail data management capabilities of this product and aggressively sell it as an add-on to its large installed base.
• Entelagent targets the U.S. financial market with its SAMS Online compliance solution. The small, 12-person company was early to market but has been unable to gain market visibility or funding to grow the company. Entellagent must either be acquired or gain funding to survive. Without significant product development and an expanded support organization, it will not be able to compete.
• TJ Group is based in Finland and focuses on providing a basic archiving solution for discovery, CAI Suite for Exchange and Domino. The product has special integration with FileNet. The company fills a hole in FileNet's offering but will need to provide a more complete product that can be delivered through a wider channel.

Many other vendors have announced products for e-mail active archiving, with some in beta testing and others moving to product use with early customers. Included in this list of emerging vendors to watch are Nexic, Sun Microsystems and Tower Technology.

Key Issues
What emerging storage technologies and products will enable new business opportunities, and how will they affect already-established storage markets?
How will enterprises improve the operational efficiency of their e-workplace infrastructures during the next five years?

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