By Michael Osterman
The need to archive email, social media, and similar data, has been a best practice within industry for many years. This is because organizations of all sizes must deal with legal holds, eDiscovery, and records requests, as well as the regulatory obligations that apply to all types of electronic content.
However, as users have increasingly turned to their mobile devices to create corporate content, the need for archiving has evolved dramatically. For example, a major Osterman Research survey found that 42% of the corporate content that users consume is accessed by a mobile device, such as a smartphone, tablet, or laptop. Moreover, 31% of the content that users create is done so on a mobile device*.
Archiving Mobile Communications
With this new way to access and create content, it is essential that the content be archived. Unfortunately, organizations have not kept up with this need. Consider the following:
- 98% of email from mobile devices is archived, but only 48% of the documents are archived.
- Text messages, social media posts, and phone call log data are archived in even smaller proportions.
- While the task of archiving content should be immediate, fewer than one-half of mobile users report that archiving from their devices – if it happens at all – occurs immediately and continuously. For one in eight users, there can be long periods of time before mobile content is backed-up, such as only when the user is connected to the corporate Wi-Fi network.
When a company does not archive the data on mobile devices immediately, the content can become corrupted, lost, or modified before it has the chance to be stored. The inability to quickly and easily store this data creates a problem for organizations that must accomplish this task for legal or regulatory purposes. Additionally, the inability to store such data means that a legal hold could not be accomplished, and vital business records could be lost.
The organizations that recognize the importance of archiving their electronic content have implemented mobile archiving solutions. They are able to migrate all relevant content from their mobile devices quickly, efficiently, and automatically.
What You Should Do
- Determine and confirm where your data is. Is your data on corporate devices, employee-owned devices, or both?
- Develop policies about how corporate and employee devices are used. This policy should focus on devices, operating systems, and their versions. Outline the policies for Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), Bring Your Own Application (BYOA) and Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC). Furthermore, the policies must identify locations for content storage.
- Implement technologies that will help you enforce corporate policies. The solutions that you need to implement must archive mobile communications directly from mobile devices at real, or near real-time to a central archive.
The GWAVA Solution
One solution to consider, is Retain Mobile from GWAVA. Retain Mobile securely archives text messages, SMS/MMS and phone call logs for Android devices as well as BBM, PIN, SMS/MMS, and phone call logs for BlackBerry devices, plus it archives iPhones withouth tethering!
Archiving iPhones and iOS devices
Archive iPhones and iOS devices with Retain Mobile by separating corporate communication data from the employee’s own personal data. All encrypted SMS/Text messages and dedicated business phone number data is pushed from the secure server to Retain, via the Retain Collector. The Retain Collector then routes that data directly to the Retain Unified Archive. Additionally, Retain archives BBM Protected messages on iOS devices. This means there is no need to tether or sync the device and archiving is done in real time. Retain Mobile is the only enterprise-ready solution for iOS archiving.
Archiving Android Devices
Archive Android text messages and more with Retain Mobile. It operates through a lightweight app installed on each device. This app captures all SMS/MMS, and phone call log data and pushes it to the Retain archive. Secure communication, including encrypted SMS/Text messages and dedicated business phone number data, is pushed from the secure server, via the Retain Collector, to the Retain archive. Additionally, Retain archives BBM Protected messages on Android devices.
Archiving BlackBerry Devices
Retain Mobile captures all BlackBerry mobile messages via the BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES). The data is pulled directly from the BlackBerry Enterprise Service itself. Retain archives Blackberry text messages (SMS/MMS & PIN), BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) & BBM Protected conversations, phone log data. It also provides policy-based mobile call recording and archiving, as well as auto-provisioning of new smartphone users.
*Information comes from the GWAVA/Osterman whitepaper,“The Growing Need for Mobile Device Archiving.”
For more information about Osterman Research, visit: www.ostermanresearch.com
To view the Osterman Research blog, visit: ostermanresearch.wordpress.com
Photo Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/garryknight/6197150925
