RenewData® Supports Large Governmental Agency to Successfully Respond to Congressional Subpoena

The email archiving market will essentially triple in the coming years, from roughly $500M in 2007 to an estimated $1.4B in 2010.  Additionally, among organizations that have not yet deployed an archiving system, approximately one-half plan to do so in 2007 and 2008.  Why are corporations, private and public organizations, and government agencies adopting email archiving solutions at such a rapid pace?  Considering the rate at which organizations are creating – and therefore attempting to manage – the exponentially increasing volumes of electronic data during the course of standard operations, finding a solution to organize, consolidate, and store these vast amounts of data is critical.  Email archiving offers organizations the much-needed ability to quickly and easily search and retrieve electronically stored information (ESI), while also enabling the use of record retention policies and the ability to quarantine information that may be subject to litigation holds.  Once the data has been moved into the archiving platform, it can then be run through the rules-based engine embedded in the email archiving solution. Many of the documents will immediately be classified as “not relevant” and destroyed – that is, they are not responsive to any of the rules in play. The remaining documents will then be categorized appropriately and treated the same as any other document residing within the archiving platform.

However, while email archiving solutions do a tremendous job of curtailing the costs and angst of storing “live” data being created, it unfortunately does not apply to any historical data that has been backed up and stored on physical media such as hard drives and backup tapes.  Archiving platforms are built to handle electronic data created from the day of implementation and forward.  However, most large organizations – including governmental agencies – typically use backup tapes as the primary storage device for historical email and user file data.  In recent years especially, as organizations of all sizes found themselves having to manage several overlapping (and often serial) litigation holds, backup tapes served as the usual repositories of electronically stored information.

Over time, as these stores of backup tapes continue to grow, it becomes more difficult and more legally risky to discard them because of the liability inherent in not knowing what data the tapes contain.  Rather than err on the side of possible spoliation of evidence, legal teams have been forced to maintain thousands – sometimes millions – of backup tapes.  For all the legal teams know, the “smoking gun” of the litigation hold from matter 12345-6789 may exist somewhere on those tapes.  Choosing to destroy any of the backup tapes without knowing what they contain could mean losing the entire case and being penalized with sanctions.  At the same time, what dormant liability do organizations leave themselves open to by maintaining large volumes of data on these tapes, that by all rights, could very well be deleted?  There is a solution that effectively addresses the problems associated with managing “live” data in conjunction with mountains of backup tapes containing unknown historical information: Data Migration services.

Consider the following scenario involving a large U.S. governmental agency with parallel requirements of (a) moving all email data into one repository, while also (b) attempting to deliver legal productions of email from the very set of email data being migrated:

Challenge: In January 2007, a large U.S. governmental agency (“federal agency”) was being investigated by Congress for corrupt practices. At the same time, this agency was trying to migrate dozens of terabytes of data into its newly deployed email archiving solution.

Three congressional subpoenas required production of emails for 19 targeted individuals across specific dates from a data pool of 25 terabytes. This was to be completed within incredibly rigid deadlines: three phases of the project were to take place over three weeks. The first phase required a production of data from six named individuals, the second phase involved data related to seven additional users, and the final phase included these same 13 users, plus six additional users from a different date range.

Due to other imminent congressional action and litigation, the federal agency also required a central repository for emails. This would involve consolidating and restoring substantial volumes of legacy email data from their backup media and incorporating current data from thousands of email users into a compliant email archiving system.  The purpose of this exercise was to enable the retrieval of future responsive data by searching and producing the same in a more rapid and cost-efficient manner. A central repository would also consolidate the pool of data and decrease the federal agency’s reliance on backup tapes.

Many vendors were considered for the project, but most did not respond to the request for proposal due to the highly compressed deadlines. Some vendors were eliminated because their processes or facility could not adhere to the strict security requirements necessary to handle sensitive government data. RenewData was required to abide by strict federal security and confidentiality guidelines, including delivery of project requirements directly to the project manager.

Data Migration employs backup tape extraction and data conversion technologies that have been developed through the years in the wake of multiple, reactive e-discovery woes by applying proactive, preventative techniques earlier on. When organizations find themselves needing to consolidate legacy data on tapes with current data residing on live servers or within an email archiving platform, or when moving from one archiving solution to another, Data Migration services provide these organizations with a uniform, organized, easily accessible repository of all electronically stored information.  The data migration process also results in the safe destruction of possibly thousands of backup tapes, which drastically reduces storage costs and, more importantly, instantly removes any latent liability associated with that previously unknown data.

Taking advantage of Data Migration technologies, the federal agency sought out a provider of a solution that would address both of their requirements, within the given deadlines:

Solution: After a rigorous process of elimination, the federal agency engaged RenewData for the project. Immediately, several of RenewData’s EnCase® certified forensic specialists traveled to multiple locations of this federal agency to collect the physical media. These specialists took custody of sensitive media and issued a document verifying custody had been officially transferred.  The media, including 350 backup tapes, was then hand-carried under constant physical supervision to RenewData’s state-of-the-art facility in Austin, Texas. 

Once the media arrived in-house, hundreds of parallel processing pods were used to extract, convert, and de-duplicate email messages. The output was then tested under a strict quality assurance program. 

After de-duplication, the original 25 terabytes of data was compressed into a more manageable seven terabytes. The seven terabytes destined for ingestion into the newly-deployed email archiving system were then delivered to the federal agency ten days before the first of the three phases of delivery was to be completed. Seven days later, RenewData produced and delivered six individuals' emails in de-duplicated .PST format as scheduled. As the data processing and migration continued, RenewData then produced emails for the second phase of seven more individuals' emails -- also in de-duplicated .PST format -- the following week as scheduled. The final production of 19 individuals' email data was delivered to the federal agency on schedule one week later in the same required de-duplicated .PST format, in conjunction with the ongoing data migration process. 

In addition to the benefits and cost savings associated with Data Migration services, there are many peripheral techniques to supplement this solution.  For instance, in a non-reactive environment with ample time, planning, and solid client requirements, e-discovery service providers are quite capable of processing backup tapes in a relatively inexpensive and expeditious fashion.  With some preliminary reporting, many of the tapes can often be identified as “out of scope,” where the beginning date of the oldest litigation hold or record retention policy is after the date the tape was created, and thus can be safely destroyed.  These early reporting options are applied prior to actual data extraction, which often quickly eliminates many of the tapes in question.

This method of managing and consolidating volumes of email data on backup tapes into a single archiving solution, leaves large corporations, government agencies, and organizations of all types with a unified, searchable database that dynamically applies record retention policies as defined by its owners. Litigation holds are administered with efficiency, pertinent information is produced in a reliable and timely manner when discovery orders arise, and data storage requirements are dramatically reduced.  From legal, budgetary, and technical perspectives, migrating data into an archiving solution directly diminishes much of the burden and costs associated with the ongoing management of ever-increasing amounts of electronic data.

Although the federal agency’s situation did not allow for many of the proactive, complementary tactics that can often supplement the advantages of Data Migration services, each of the project’s requirements were met with great success.  As seen, even in a highly-reactive situation, dealing with the strictest of timeframes, involving sensitive governmental data, RenewData’s Data Migration services provided the federal agency with an optimal outcome:

Results: These timely productions allowed the federal agency to satisfy the Congressional subpoena requests for legal discovery, without disrupting the agency's business decision to migrate 25 terabytes of email data into a single archiving platform. The resulting data set was decreased to a more manageable seven terabytes of data, drastically reducing the agency’s ingestion and archiving costs. Because the Data Migration was such a resounding success, the federal agency has since been able to conduct several simple and complex searches from the archiving platform for legal discovery purposes. It is now possible for legal professionals at the federal agency to query one central repository for additional individuals’ data in response to subsequent litigation or subpoenas.  In initiating proactive data consolidation and migration efforts, the federal agency is currently realizing cost savings of over 95% of the original cost of discovery.  Additionally, it is now compliant with the government’s internal discovery readiness initiative.

This particular situation is just one example of how Data Migration services can reduce the risk and cost of storing legacy email, whether it exists in an antiquated archiving tool or on backup tapes. RenewData has employed their Data Migration Services, in conjunction with the full suite of Planning, Preservation & Collection, Processing, Review & Analytics, and Production capabilities, to help many institutions reduce the burden and costs associated with managing electronic data in an increasingly regulated, litigious culture.  To calculate the risk or dormant liability your organization may entail by continuing to maintain stores of backup tapes, visit http://renewdata.com/risk-calc.php or contact RenewData at info@renewdata.com.