Reduce mail server space requirements by 87%
A recommendation from KMD, a convincing demonstration and a healthy functionality-to-price ratio made ComArchive the natural choice for 300-employee-strong Danish manufacturer Bosal-Sekura. Amongst other things they’ve reduced the amount of server space they devote to e-mail attachments by as much as 87%.
Bosal-Sekura’s IT Manager has many years of experience as an I.T. consultant, and they’ve taught him that there are three crucially important things to look for when investing in a new technology: standards, standards and standards. So that was also what he looked for when the time came to find an e-mail archiving solution. The decision was driven by a Group requirement that all Bosal-Sekura’s e-mails be stored for five years.
Perfect for a project-orientated company
”We looked at a number of different archiving systems, but ComArchive was the system that best suited our needs. We have also chosen to invest in the ComArchive Project Binder add-on tool. We did so because the price was right, because it was an excellent fit with the way that we do business, and because it supports the needs of a very project-orientated company like ours. It’s much better suited to our requirements than SharePoint for example, which we also use but for other tasks,” explains Michael Basbøll, Bosal-Sekura’s IT Manager.
Like the majority of employees in Danish companies, Bosal-Sekura’s staff haven’t spent time deleting their unwanted e-mails. The result: congested inboxes and an exchange server under pressure. ”Systems that just keep growing and growing end up breaking down – that’s just the way it is,” notes Michael Basbøll.
Both Michael Basbøll and Bosal-Sekura are anxious to avoid that situation, primarily because it could mean that they would loose vitally important e-mails, but also because it would require extensive I.T. resources to turn the situation around. ”And buying a new mail server won’t make any difference to the volume of mail in users’ inboxes,” as Michael Basbøll pithily puts it.
Today, IT Manager Michael Basbøll can see how ComArchive has made a huge difference to the company’s exchange server because mail is no longer stored in user’s mail boxes but in ComArchive.
Reducing space devoted to attachments by 87%
This easing of the burden on the mail server is only partly attributable, however, to the fact that there are fewer mails in user’s inboxes. ComArchive also eradicates the multiple storage of duplicate files. ComArchive automatically compares all the attachments it saves with previous versions to check whether the document in question has already been saved. One copy, and one copy only, of any attachment that is circulated amongst a group of users is stored automatically.
”ComArchive’s deals with attachments in a really neat way, and we now use 87% less server space than we did previously. That’s a difference we can really feel,” emphasises Michael Basbøll, and points to the fact that it has also increased mail server speeds.
ComArchive’s project tool preferred to SharePoint
Bosal-Sekura already use SharePoint, and are very happy with it – but they don’t use it for e-mail archiving. In that area, Michael Basbøll prefers ComArchive’s project tool: Project Binder.
He explains: ”ComArchive Project Binder makes it incredibly easy to save and share e-mails and attachments. All you need to do is create a joint project space where everything is stored. When the project is completed the project space is deleted but all e-mails are saved. In that area SharePoint – in my opinion – is a bit heavy going,” he says, and continues:
”If you delete a document in SharePoint it’s gone for good - or at any rate you’ll have to search for a back up through stacks of files with peculiar names. In ComArchive, however, you just save your mails and documents on the SQL-server. That way you know where they are and they’re easy to retrieve. You can search for particular words, document names, PDFs etc. So yes, I think ComArchive is a much better solution.”
Very high levels of user satisfaction
Michael Basbøll also says that users now, without being asked to do so, have actually begun tidying up their inboxes themselves and no longer use Outlook to archive their emails. ”Now that they know that they can find their mails again, and they’ve found out how easy it is – well, they’re very happy,” he says smiling.
Effective search tool saves man hours
”Our time savings are definitely down to ComArchive’s search tool which is fully integrated with Outlook – and which is 100 times easier to use than searching through all your Outlook folders after a particular mail. It definitely saves time, though I couldn’t give you a figure for how much.”
Easy e-mail archiving for the I.T. Department
Seen from the IT Manager’s point of view, ComArchive e-mail archiving is also much simpler than a restore solution. At the same time, and in Michael Basbøll’s opinion, it is both a risky and difficult task to re-install an exchange server with a mail database. ”We don’t need to worry about it because ComArchive makes sure that we always have a full back-up of the SQL database available featuring all our archived e-mails. In fact we just need an exchange server, and that’s it.”
”We are very, very happy with the archiving and project tool and with our relationship with ComArchive,” concludes Michael Basbøll.
N.B.:
The company are part of the global Bosal group, which has 300 employees and manufactures cabs for construction machinery, a market in which it is a leading player.
