Iron-clad Archiving

The emergence of instant messaging as an essential tool for financial-services companies has forced IT managers to look long and hard at how they archive IM interactions, especially as they attempt to comply with regulations from the Securities and Exchange Commission regarding how they keep such records. To simplify the task, many companies are marrying their IM archives with their existing E-mail stores.

Last week, records-management vendor Iron Mountain Inc. teamed with four IM-management vendors to ease those archive-integration efforts. Iron Mountain's partnership with Akonix Systems, Communicator, FaceTime Communications, and IMlogic will let companies eliminate separate IM and E-mail archives.

Iron Mountain, known for storing paper files deep below the surface of the earth, will also provide IM support as part of its electronic-archival service. Meta Group analyst Charlie Brett says the company has a great track record with records management and is in the right position for the convergence of physical and electronic media retention.