eDiscovery

Disk Based Archive Enables Fast and Efficient Response to Discovery Requests

eDiscovery has been a game changer for many businesses. Businesses need to develop policies and implement actions to address the new world of legal discovery of electronically stored information. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) were passed in Dec 2006 and defined a clear new set of rules that impact how all businesses store and retrieve electronic information.

ESI, electronically stored information, as defined by FRCP must:

• Be able to be preserved.

• Be part of litigation holds.

• Include metadata.

• Encourage development of policies, procedures and systems that enable search, protection of data and management of policies that include litigation hold.

Backups are not suitable for eDiscovery and there are fundamental issues with backups in an eDiscovery process:

• Backups constitute raw content and contain no indexing or means to enable search.

• Data integrity is not guaranteed. Due to age, mishandling or corruption, data in many cases cannot be recovered from typical back media (tape in most cases).

• Backups are a snapshot of data that is generated at that point in time. Between backups, data could have been created, modified and/or deleted.

Disk based archives provide a simple and easy to use solution to the eDiscovery dilemma. The capabilities of disk based archives address each of the ESI requisites of FRCP in the following ways:

• Be able to be Preserved — Disk based archives have WORM capabilities that lock down ESI files to insure immutability.

• Be part of Litigation Holds — Litigation hold is easily accomplished with a disk–based archive using the WORM feature. Simply convert to WORM. The change from read/write to WORM will preserve the data until the hold is released.

• Include Metadata — Disk based archives have metadata attached to the fields so they can be included in the discovery material.

Permabit Solution:

Permabit Enterprise Archive™ Dedupe 2.0 storage delivers on all of the requirements for eDiscovery by delivering a compliance based solution that manages ESI as described above. In addition, Permabit Enterprise Archive has the following capabilities:

• Scalable Deduplication — By leveraging built-in SDR (Scalable Data Reduction) Permabit stores more data in less space than any other disk-based archive solution in the industry.

• Intelligent Recovery™ — Leveraging patented RAIN–EC technology that is more effective than RAID.

• High Availability — To ensure you always have access to archived data.

• Replication — That further protects data locally or in remote sites.

• WORM Retention — That can lock down data to insure immutability and deliver chain–of–custody proof with content certificates.

• WORM Flexibility — Any read/write volume can be instantly converted to WORM using the Convert to WORM feature.

• Encryption — And retention periods can be uniquely specified or policy driven based on file type, origin or application.

• Digital Fingerprinting — That manages data integrity for data at rest and on–the–fly. Federal Regulations define SHA–256 hashing algorithms as a requisite to address these issues.