What is e-discovery, and how does it affect my data management environments?

By now most IT managers have heard the buzz around “e-discovery”. Depending on who is asking about it or requesting it, what they expect could be vastly different from what you plan on implementing. With my experience of implementing and supporting e-discovery solutions, I hope to clear up some of the confusion around e-discovery’s nomenclature and shed some light on some e-discovery solutions that provide the most bang for their buck. First off, let’s define e-discovery. Again, depending who you ask for the definition will depending on result.  In the legal word for example, e-discovery is defined as the  discovery in civil litigation which deals with information in electronic format also referred to as Electronically Stored Information (ESI) (yup, lifted that right from wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_discovery) In the IT world, however, we tend to define e-discovery as the process in which we archive and store the data for future “discovery.” The process of indexing data, referencing metadata, and finally searching for that data is in short the IT e-discovery process. How you choose to tackle e-discovery and stand it up in your infrastructure can be a timely decision making process.  What type of software do I use, what components to I need to stand up (servers, storage, etc). For the most part, Symantec’s Enterprise Vault with its Discovery Accelerator options continues to be an industry standard for e-discovery. This hardware agnostic solution allows for e-discovery into both MS Exchange and file servers, as well as IMs, SharePoint, and Lotus Notes discovery options. Check out more at this white paper: http://eval.symantec.com/mktginfo/enterprise/fact_sheets/ent-datasheet_enterprise_vault_ediscovery_connectors.pdf Another nicely defined e-discovery solution comes from Clearwell Systems. Clearwell’s E-Discovery Platform 5.0 is a clearly defined solution that follows the Electronic Discovery Reference Model. Clearwell is a turnkey solution that can be operational and out of the box within 30 minutes and its web base interface makes it easy to track cases and e-discovery project. Here a link to their home page: http://www.clearwellsystems.com/index.php At the end of the day, it’s the IT managers and teams that have to do the leg work of make e-discovery a viable tool. Choosing the correct product line will make all the difference!