Mimecast Provides Cloud-based Archive for All Lync Communications

By Michael Guta, TMCnet Contributing Writer

Communications solutions are implemented by organizations not only to improve overall operations and customer service, but to also meet compliance regulations. Archiving the massive amount of communications that go on between customers, businesses and employees can get complicated and expensive. Using cloud-based services, organizations of any size can archive all of their communications data with a platform that makes it easily accessible. Mimecast, provider of cloud-based e-mail management for Microsoft (News - Alert) Exchange and Microsoft Office 365, including archiving, continuity and security, has launched cloud archiving services for Microsoft Lync IM.

Microsoft Lync a platform for unified communications (UC) including instant messaging (IM), VoIP (voice over IP), file transfer, Web conferencing, voice mail and email. The Mimecast Archiving for Microsoft Lync IM provides a secure cloud platform for Microsoft Lync instant messages (IM), as well as the files, presentations and whiteboards that have been shared or transferred using Lync. By providing an archiving platform using the cloud environment, Mimecast allows its customers to access their content anytime and anywhere in the event of an e-discovery or compliance requirement or just searching for a particular set of data.

Archiving IM is very important because it is one of the preferred methods of communications for organizations, and Microsoft Lync IM is used by 90 of the Fortune 100. While many companies use IM, not many of them are aware regarding the compliance issues. Archiving IM allows organizations to protect themselves in the event of a disagreement or any other issue.

Key features of Mimecast Archiving for Microsoft Lync IM include:

• Archives peer-to-peer instant messages, conferences, which are multi-party instant messages; conference content, including uploaded content and event-related content (eg, joining, leaving, uploading); and whiteboards and polls shared during a conference (Lync 2013)
• Provides a single interface for discovery/compliance workers and administrators
• Delivers unified search results across Lync IM, e-mail and files
• Search results delivered without necessarily alerting users to investigations
• Integrates in to Mimecast's Cloud Information Platform

The Mimecast Administration Console lets administrators use a unified interface with searches against all electronic conversations, regardless of the format. New messages are checked periodically and using the Mimecast Synchronization Engine it sends them to the archive automatically. This automation lowers the cost of discovery while reducing any problems related to searches across many different data repositories.

"It's great to see that more organizations are using Lync for communication and to improve end-user productivity. What is concerning, though, is that many of them do so without recognizing they need to archive the IM conversation just as they do other electronic conversations like e-mail,” said Engin Yilmaz, product manager at Mimecast. “Also some of those that have actually considered archiving have chosen solutions that create more work for their IT administrators, add yet more complexity to their network, aren't fully featured, are tough to use and add unnecessary cost to their budget."

(source: http://www.lyncmigration.com/topics/lyncmigration/articles/360418-mimecast-provides-cloud-based-archive-all-lync-communications.htm)