Digital communication channels, from email to social media to file-sharing platforms, generate a ton of data, including unstructured data—and legacy data archiving systems are struggling to keep up.
Consider these stats: Microsoft Teams daily active usage is up 894%. Just imagine all the files and conversations being shared right now—and all the risks to the enterprise that this activity creates? Zoom’s annualised run rate for meeting minutes is in the trillions now. What conversations are happening in those meetings—in the cloud? And then, there’s Slack: use of this messaging platform exceeds 1.5 billion messages every week.
Many enterprises realise they need modern solutions to manage all this data, including new types of content, and keep up with compliance regulations too. And they’re looking to the cloud for the answer.
Migrating to a modern, cloud-based enterprise archiving solution can be a smart move that delivers many benefits, including lower storage costs, scalability and reliability, and faster access to archived data for compliance audits and legal discovery. But there’s a lot to consider when migrating to a new system—and getting started can be one of the biggest obstacles to … well … getting started.
If your organisation is thinking about moving to a cloud-based archiving solution, but you’re experiencing some migration inertia, Proofpoint has a resource that you may find useful. Our new publication, “The Complete Guide to Migrating Your Enterprise Archiving System: Everything You Need to Know About Moving to the Cloud,” can help you decide if migrating to a new archiving solution is the right move for your business and, if so, what steps you should consider taking next.
Here are just some of the topics we cover in our new guide:
- How an archive migration can present a golden opportunity for broader transformation
- Four approaches that can help to guide your thinking around migrating your archive
- Fundamental questions your organisation should answer before you migrate, including this one: Where is our data? (Note: The answer to that critical question may be harder to provide than you might think, especially with so many employees now working from home.)
Selecting a vendor: shortlists and wishlists
“The Complete Guide to Migrating Your Enterprise Archiving System” also walks you through the process of selecting cloud archiving vendors for evaluation. You’ll find out what key qualities and capabilities to look for in a vendor, so you can create a shortlist of potential candidates who offer technology that would be a good fit for your business.
The “Modern Archiving Solution Wishlist” in the guide can help you understand why your business might want to invest in certain features and functionality when choosing a modern archiving solution. For example, if your business wants to ensure all data is captured and stored, then you’ll want to look for a solution that supports multiple content types across a wide variety of communication channels.
Our guide also offers a list of steps you may want to take when evaluating cloud-based archiving software, including what to look for when learning about licensing fee structures.
Setting course for a long and successful journey
Once you choose an archiving vendor for your organisation, what comes next? Quite a lot, actually. This migration will be a journey for your business, and the consequences of this move could take many years to play out. That’s why it’s so critical to take a thoughtful approach from the start. “The Complete Guide to Migrating Your Enterprise Archiving System” can help you do that by providing a high-level, step-by-step overview of the migration process—from mapping out your approach to migrating critical data to building a road map for the future.
The guide also discusses data retention policies and touches on some rules and regulations that organisations and their IT, legal and compliance teams will want to keep in mind in the pre-planning stage for migration. You’ll even find a handy table that outlines data retention requirements for the following industries: financial services, healthcare and government.
Migrating your archive to the cloud—and letting go of legacy systems—can help reduce legal and compliance headaches and create a competitive advantage for your business. But no matter how you ultimately decide to approach the process, it’s a big step—and a daunting one. Our guide is meant to be a starting point for your business, offering information that can help you make this critical shift more confidently, efficiently and smoothly.
Download a free copy of “The Complete Guide to Migrating Your Enterprise Archiving System” from Proofpoint here.