“Solving PST Management Problems in Microsoft Exchange Environments,” a white paper published by Osterman Research, states that , 75% of information that end users need to do their jobs is stored in email, making desktop PST management and/or local PST management critical. This requires comprehensive email retention policies and the right tools to manage this important source of corporate data.

Access to PST files is necessary for legal discovery, regulatory compliance and implementation of corporate policy. The decentralized nature of PST files combined with their proliferation throughout the enterprise often make the task of finding, accessing and managing these information stores extremely difficult for administrators.

While organizations understand that PST management is a necessity, managing these files is not an easy task, as desktop PST management or local PST management present organizations with a variety of challenges. Email retention policies should be clearly defined to ensure organizations don’t continue to lose corporate information, and potentially fail to comply with regulations.  Below are some suggestions that will help make PST management a reality.

·         Locate, Manage and Search PST Files - When data is stored locally on desktop, laptop computers, or scattered around your network, finding information stored in desktop or local PST files can be difficult and time-consuming.  In addition, enforcing archiving, retention and deletion policies is much more difficult when data stores are not centrally accessible to IT staff.  Third-party products provide content discovery, migration and PST management for local and network PST files by allowing administrators to create flexible rules that monitor emails and automatically archive and enforce corporate email retention policies.

·         Archive and Delete PST File Content - Users love PST’s for their flexibility, convenience and portability.  However, companies need to centrally manage all the information on their networks,  and transferring PST content into an archive helps to bring balance to this dilemma. By doing this, users can still get access and search this content and administrators are able to delete these unwanted PST files, since no longer necessary.

·         Backup PST Files - There has been a distinct shift towards moving user archived messages away from PST files and into centrally managed repositories; however, many organizations still attempt to manage user created PST files. Although PST files are created using Microsoft Outlook on users' computers, many companies, in an attempt to facilitate easier backup and disaster recovery mechanisms, choose to store these PST files on network shares. This, however, is a configuration not recommended by Microsoft. Tools are available to backup PST files located on individual workstations without disruption to the users or without creating additional bandwidth issues.

·         Capture Statistics and Generate Reports - Reporting on the content of all PST files across the entire organization is an important key step in understanding the information assets an organization possesses. Use third-party tools to gather comprehensive statistics and gain a total perspective over the health of your entire email environment, including PST files, with information such as: total number of PSTs, total message/attachment counts, size, and age.  This ensures successful desktop PST management and local PST management.

Native Exchange tools do not have the capability for setting comprehensive email retention policies or for PST management including desktop PST management and local PST management.  Relying solely on these PST tools may be putting your organization at risk.

Click here to to read Mail Attender'sPST Management Data Sheet