As the scale of PST files continued to grow, the City of Manassas looked for an
email archiving solution that would enable it to minimize the pain associated
with PST files while helping to improve the capacity of its Exchange servers.
Acting on a referral by Franklin County, Virginia, City of Manassas IT Manager
Randy Buzzard turned to C2C and its ArchiveOne® email archiving application for
relief.

Once the site of the first major land battle of the American Civil War, the City of Manassas, Virginia is an independent city of nearly 40,000 residents just outside the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area. The city’s Information Technology Division provides leadership and guidance to city departments in the introduction and use of new technologies, which enhance services to its citizens.

The Challenge
A division of the Finance and Administration Department, the Information Technology Division of the City of Manassas, provides an array of technical services and products for city management, staff, elected officials and citizens. In addition to services such as computer support, telecommunications management, software and database analysis and design, the IT staff is responsible for the security of electronically stored information. Like many government entities, the City of Manassas is regulated by laws that govern the retention and accessibility of email. With 400 employees, the City of Manassas used PST files as part of its email management system.

The Solution
The City of Manassas needed an email archiving solution that would help with capacity and could provide more than just a date range search function for eDiscovery purposes. Not wanting to require another login point to access email, the solution also needed to be transparent to end users. After evaluating ArchiveOne, Buzzard chose the C2C solution based on the criteria of cost, ease of use, ease of installation and the fact that it didn’t require SQL. The ArchiveOne suite selected included solutions for Compliance, Policy enforcement and elimination of PST files.

“ArchiveOne archives email from mailboxes, PST files and public folders automatically and invisibly based on criteria that I select,” said Buzzard. “It is designed to meet my needs for email management, eDiscovery and retention while keeping the size of our mailboxes under control. The installation wizard made implementing it a breeze. Users still have complete access to their archived email while I’ve gained better efficiency and improved capacity of our Exchange servers.

The Results
C2C’s ArchiveOne solution met the archiving, retention and eDiscovery needs of the City of Manassas. By providing full PST management – from discovering PST files to analysis of the data held in them, migration directly to the archive and their elimination – Buzzard was able to rid himself of the pain in managing PSTs altogether.

“One of the lessons we learned by doing this project is that there really isn’t any need to create PST files,” said Buzzard. With ArchiveOne, we were able to minimize the server space needed for mailboxes with email archiving in the first place, removing the need for PSTs and allowing us to realize space savings once ArchiveOne was turned on.”

ArchiveOne’s full PST management enabled the City of Manassas to reduce the footprint for its email data, reduce backup and restore times and the costs associated with email management. By providing comprehensive retention management and eDiscovery, ArchiveOne allows Buzzard to be in full control of the City of Manassas’ data at all times.

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