November 2000

OTG EmailXtender: A Mail Archive Reborn

By Lowell Rapaport

One of the newest mail archive systems on the market is actually based on a venerable product that has been around for more than two years. Earlier this year, OTG of Bethesda, MD, acquired xVault, Nashua, NH, and re-released the company's eponymous mail archive product under a new name, EmailXtender.

Like all OTG programs, EmailXtender features tight integration with Windows and Microsoft applications. However, it also maintains compatibility with non-Microsoft applications through a Web interface driven by CGI scripts. This lets EmailXtender be used with Sendmail, Lotus Notes or Microsoft Exchange servers and with any Web browser.

EmailXtender monitors your email server through a "listener" service. As your email server receives messages and their attachments, the listener service adds them to an EmailXtender archive called a "Message Center." The Message Center has its own database so even if messages are deleted from the email server, they will persist in the archive. Spam and unwanted emails can be deleted from the archive based on policies determined by the administrator and entered on EmailXtender's console.

Product Information Product: EmailXtender Supplier: OTG, Bethesda, MD 301-897-1400 www.otg.com Storage architecture: File server/HSM (DiskXtender) Archiving and storage platform: Windows NT/2000 Storage media: MO, CD, DVD and tape Searchable: in Outlook and via Web Indexed search: ISYS Price: $60 per user mailbox

EmailXtender's listener service distinguishes it from archiving systems that leave a "stub" in the email server in order to index and locate the messages in the archive.

"Keeping track of email messages this way may be of value in regulated industries such as financial services," says Chris Gray of OTG, "but there are limitations when you use your email server as a filing cabinet for messages. First, you're using it for long-term storage. Even short email stubs in large numbers can add up to lots of files, large memory demands and scalability requirements for an Exchange server. Second, when email is sorted by users into ad hoc folders, it tends to obscure the value of email as corporate memory."

Under EmailXtender's architecture, the email archive is independent from your email server. (If a company desires stub records within their source email servers, OTG offers an EmailXtract module that can be added to EmailXtender.) The archive is accessible via Web browser, providing for remote administration and total portability across all platforms. The internal search engine is ISYS, developed by Odyssey Development, Greenwood Village, CO.

"We use ISYS because it was designed to index documents such as email, spreadsheets and Word files," Gray explains. "We looked at search engines like AltaVista but rejected them because they were geared more toward HTML files. We wanted our system to index attachments as well as email messages."

It is also possible for other applications to interface with the ISYS search engine, making email part of a business' general document management and workflow. For example, a document management system searching for documents can issue a query to ISYS and bring up a list of email documents as part of a regular search.

EmailXtender offers special provisions for integrating with Microsoft Outlook. Users can bring up the ISYS search engine from within Outlook as well as through the Web interface. Clicking on Outlook's Find button will bring up the ISYS search engine. Searching through EmailXtender's archive from Outlook is as easy as searching through an Outlook Exchange server.

With DiskXtender, OTG has improved upon the original xVault product in part by bundling it with DiskXtender, the company's storage management software. DiskXtender lets EmailXtender use any storage device - optical, CD, DVD or tape - for the archive. This has led library manufacturers, including JVC, Wayne, NJ, and BDT, Rottweil, Germany, to bundle EmailXtender with their libraries.

EmailXtender emphasizes preservation of email messages and scalability while maintaining universal access. A search engine ensures that email documents are always at a user's fingertips. By keeping the email archive separate from the email application, OTG's solution is scalable and portable. Its Web interface permits it to be used on intranets or the Internet and from any client. Microsoft shops will enjoy OTG's traditionally tight integration with their favorite applications.