Microsoft is hooking up with IBM for the first time to help large companies handle an increasingly worrisome problem: e-mail archiving for e-discovery, legal and audit reasons.
Starting Oct. 19, Microsoft and its channel partners began recommending a new IBM e-mail archiving product to enterprise customers through a business partner program based on hardware, software and services.
The package includes Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Release 2 software and a slew of IBM server and storage hardware, software and services. The IBM and Microsoft software is preloaded and pretested.
The IBM e-mail archiving and storage product is designed to retain e-mail for corporate governance and legal discovery. The package includes an upgrade (with e-mail search) of IBMs CommonStore eMail Archiving Preload, pretested on an IBM System x and BladeCenter server platform, powered by Advanced Micro Devices Opteron chips.
It is integrated with IBM System Storage Archive Manager for archiving and IBM System Storage DS4200 Express disk storage system with SATA (Serial ATA). The DS4200 component comes with a 4TB or 8TB option and can be expanded via expansion modules.
The package incorporates tiered archiving storage for attached tape storage, for cost savings. It also provides options for data encryption capabilities, for added security.
IDC, in Framingham, Mass., recently estimated that the volume of corporate e-mail has increased more than threefold in recent years, up from 9.7 billion in 2000 to more than 35 billion in 2005.
The package, including storage and services, will be available from IBM and IBM Business Partners in the first quarter of 2007 starting at a list price of $55,000 with optional e-mail search for an additional $2,000.