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Real-life Game of Risk a Boon for GRC Firms Quotes from Mike Casey Investor's Business Daily Article May 2008  Read the article Archiving Email Effectively Quotes from Mark Diamond Technology Review April 2008 Read the article Strong Outlook for Software, System Engineers Quotes from Mark Diamond Dice.com April 2008 Read the article Seven Storage Truths Quotes from Mark Diamond Network World April 2008
Read the article Customers Cite E-Discovery Best Practices Quotes from Mark Diamond ByteandSwitch.com Feb 2008
Read the article Cutting the Costs of Remote Disaster Recovery Quotes from Stephen Foskett InfoStor Dec 2007
Read the article Why Companies are Losing the Battle to Control Email Blog from Mark Diamond InternetEvolution Nov 2007
Read the blog Services Rid Users of Tape Storage Dangers Quote from Mark Diamond ByteandSwitch.com Oct 2007
Read the article Ten Tips to Meet Data Compliance Audits Quote from Mike Casey SearchStorage.com Sept 2007
Read the articleHow to Write an Archiving Program RFP Highlight on Kathryn Hilton SearchStorage.com Aug 2007
Read the articleIT Managers Fall Behind on E-Discovery Efforts Quote from Mark Diamond SearchStorage.com July 2007
Read the articleISCSI takes its rightful place beside Fibre Channel Quote from Stephen Foskett SearchStorage.com July 2007
Read the articleTired Storage School Quote from Mike Casey ComputerWorld UK June 2007
Read the articleSeven Things Every IT Person Should Know About Storage Quote from Mark Diamond ComputerWorld June 2007
Read the articleHow to Save Millions in Storage Optimization Quote from Mark Diamond ComputerWorld May 2007
Read the articleOverlooking features trips up email archiving Quote from Greg Forest SearchWinIt.com/TechTarget April 2007
Read the articleLawsuits Drive Email Archiving Quote from Mark Diamond SearchWinIt.com/TechTarget March 2007
Read the articleE-mail archiving: Should storage pros keep everything? SearchStorage.com, May 19, 2006 Beth Pariseau Mark Diamond, consultant with Contoural Inc., said a survey of clients showed 29% found email archiving for the long term less risky, in terms of compliance, than attempting to reduce data, while 21% thought deleting data on a regular basis was less risky. Forty-two percent answered that they are not sure. A convincing case for long-term retention, however, was found when Diamond offered insight into the inner workings of a lawyers mind in a presentation to Chicago's storage networking user group Wednesday morning. ..." Read the articleTechnology Bank Director Magazine, 1st Quarter 2006 Chris Costanzo Getting the Most Out of Marketing Large banks have been gaining deposit market share, leading some community banks to fight back with technology-driven marketing programs. Fear of having to undergo an e-mail discovery process related to a lawsuit is typically the biggest driver behind the purchase of an e-mail archiving system, says Mark Diamond, president and CEO of Contoural Inc. There are ways to keep archiving expenses to a minimum, Diamond says. ŅIn our opinion, it depends on how you save it, he says. Diamond also recommends using a system that automatically eliminates duplicate copies. This move saves on storage, he says. ŅA good e-mail archive can decrease e-mail storage costs by 70%. Other key requirements, according to a 2004 report from Osterman Research and Contoural, include the ability to index all content (for easier retrieval), and controls to ensure the archived data is tamperproof. Perhaps more important than technological considerations is having a well-reasoned strategy for how the archiving system should be implemented. Read the articleHedge funds snub SEC e-mail archiving rule SearchStorage.com, January 31, 2006 Beth Pariseau Hedge fund managers have until Feb. 1 to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) according to an Oct. 2004 compliance ruling, but industry experts say only a minority of the financial firms are pursuing e-mail archiving and other records retention policies -- and that this week's deadline may prove to be just the first battleground in bringing hedge funds under the control of the SEC. "Hedge funds are a strong force that the SEC will want to contend with," said Mark Diamond, president and CEO of compliance consulting firm Contoural, Inc. "Sooner or later, regulation will be a fact of life for all of them."
Read the articleOne size doesn't fit all e-mail archive policies and products SearchWin2000.com, October 27, 2005 Joan Goodchild Internal policies regarding e-mail archiving and data retention usually start with a company's legal department, but it would be better if it began with the IT department. IT managers should be involved in the beginning stages of developing an e-mail-retention policy within their organization, rather than just waiting for the legal department to initiate a program. "We believe it is important for you to get in on the ground floor," said Mark Diamond, president of Contoural Inc., in Los Altos, Calif., a data storage and consulting firm. "There is a temptation on the part of IT to say 'I'll wait for them to create policy,'" he said. As Diamond put it: Regulators now want you to save more, find it easily and get it back quickly. But without any real policy in place yet, in many cases, IT administrators are relying on the end user to decide what to save and what to trash.
Read the articleWhat, where and how long? The issues of archiving e-mail SearchDomino.com, October 17, 2005 Brian Eastwood How muddled is the message on e-mail archiving? When Contoural Inc., a data and storage consulting firm, surveyed Fortune 500 companies, it found that one-third of the companies in the sample saved all e-mail, one-third deleted some messages and one-third didn't know what to do. "There's a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt about e-mail archiving," said Mark Diamond, president, Contoural. "This is clearly on the mind of senior management and attorneys, but a lot of companies aren't really sure what to archive or how much it's going to cost." At a recent e-mail archiving seminar sponsored by WinStorage magazine (a partner of SearchDomino.com), Diamond and colleague Bill Tolson, principal analyst at Contoural, offered messaging and storage administrators advice on planning and implementing an e-mail archiving strategy.
Read the articleAn Ounce of Retention CFO Magazine, September 15, 2005 Yasmin Ghahremani Two years ago, Gary Loveridge had a sudden realization — the bad kind. As general counsel for Sutter Health, a nonprofit health-care network, he realized that the way his organization handled growing volumes of E-mail posed a risk. … A lot depends on the company's risk profile. "The first question we ask clients is, 'Do you believe that saving documents increases or decreases your liability?' " says Mark Diamond, president and chief executive of compliance and data consultancy Contoural Inc. "It is a linchpin issue." … No matter what approach is taken, training and enforcement are critical. In a courtroom, it is better to have had a bad policy enforced consistently than a great policy enforced inconsistently. "If litigators find you are not following your policy, they will exploit that," says Diamond. … Many companies find they need an outside consultant such as Contoural to help manage the creation of their ERM program, draft policy, and evaluate vendor solutions.
Read the article Compliance becomes best practice -- everywhere SearchStorage.com, August 31, 2005 Beth Pariseau Four new products hit the market this week in the compliance space -- and analysts said it's part of a larger trend toward data retention as standard business practice, even in businesses unaffected by specific government or industry regulations. … According to Mike Casey of Contoural Inc., compliance with government regulations by bigger companies has also had a domino effect on the midrange market. "Even for private companies, if they're thinking about meeting increasing levels of expectation among customers, investors and possible future acquirers, they need to start thinking about SOX certification of their controls and financial reporting," Casey said. Regulated or not, the threat of litigation, particularly in the U.S., applies to everyone, he added. "If you get into litigation, the odds are pretty high that if there's a smoking gun the other party is going to have it. Deleting all your e-mails isn't going to get rid of it, but it might get rid of context that might help mount a defense against allegations."
Read the article Instant Gratification CRN, August 29, 2005 Barbara Darrow It was a big week for instant messaging/presence with Google, Microsoft and Oracle all weighing in. … Some solution providers said IM is becoming a larger issue with enterprises. “There’s a huge amount of demand for IM at the user level; unfortunately it’s not necessarily a good idea for a lot of companies to use IM outside a controlled system,” said Mark Diamond, CEO of Contoural, a Los Altos, Calif.-based IT consultancy. “Some are simply turning off [AIM], making it inaccessible from corporate, but they need to provide a viable alternative or users will find another way to IM, from their cell phone or whatever.”
Read the article Keeping historic email Australian IT, August 23, 2005 Barbara Gengler A recent $US1.45 billion judgment against investment bank Morgan Stanley, because it could not reliably produce email for the court, has storage managers revisiting, or setting up new, corporate messaging policies. … Contoural practice development vice-president Mike Casey says companies should set policies and rules to manage the archiving and retrieval of email messages and search and classify the content of email messages. "Another step involves managing disparate email archive stores, such as on PCs or laptops, generating reports that track capacity growth and satisfy auditors requests," he says. …
Read the article E-mail archivers keep companies legit SearchStorage.com, July 11, 2005 Storage managers must deal with stricter government regulations and rapidly escalating e-mail stores. There are many e-mail archiving programs available, but finding the one that best meets your company's needs is the key. … It may be tempting to set a policy to delete all e-mail messages after 60 or 90 days, believing the problem solved. Michael Casey, vice president of data policy and ILM services at Contoural, advises clients not to bet on that option. …
Read the article Choosing a compliance archiving tool SearchStorage.com, June 7, 2005 Shane O'Neill Companies that are facing compliance regulations have a variety of archiving products available. Some products address specific applications, such as e-mail, while others enable broad archival for unstructured data, such as documents and audio/video files. … Mike Casey, vice president of practice development at Contoural Inc., a compliance and storage consulting firm in Los Altos, Calif., says that companies should select archiving tools based on the type of data they are archiving and their business needs. … Bill Tolson, principal analyst at Contoural, says that there are both technological and procedural aspects to staying compliant. …
Read the article Regulators Raise Security Bar Byte & Switch, February 16, 2005 Brett Mendel At one time, regulators charged with enforcing data security laws had a reputation of showing more bark than bite. Not anymore. U.S. government agencies that oversee such laws have begun to investigate violators in earnest, say industry watchers, and expect more in the coming year. "It is happening with HIPAA," says Mark Diamond, president and CEO of data storage consulting firm Contoural Inc. "If you do not maintain security of data, you will be investigated by the FBI." Say what? Sending in the feds for failing to adequately protect patient healthcare records? You bet. While the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) monitors compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the law does indeed expand the FBI's reach into the realm of healthcare violations.
Read the articleStrategic Storage: Smart planning moves many to tiers SearchStorage.com, December 8, 2004 Garry Kranz Tiered storage potentially makes databases nimbler and more stable, according to Mike Casey, a data-retention analyst with Contoural Inc. in Los Altos, Calif. "If done intelligently, tiered architecture ought to give you two things: better service levels on the data you really care about and lower costs overall," he says. Central to planning is the concept that data changes over time, in relation to evolving customer demands and business conditions. "Build an architecture that allows you to move data 'to secondary tiers' after its access patterns drop off. To do that, you need to think about data classification at the time the data is created," Casey says.
Read the ArticleUsers Brace for SOX Deadline SearchStorage.com, November 12, 2004 Shane O'Neill As Monday (November 15) approaches and with it the deadline for compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002, IT departments are crossing the finish line with lighter wallets, still unsure whether they've got it right or how the first round of audits will turn out. Mike Casey, vice president of practice development at Contoural, a compliance and storage consulting firm in Los Altos, Calif., said that Monday is by no means the end of SOX -- it marks the beginning of a process where everyone is learning as they go. ... For Casey, Sarbanes-Oxley is really about assuring best practices in storage. "It is a way to make sure that IT is doing what it should. Many companies lost sight of that in the boom times."
Read the Article Data Retention Regulations: Keeping It Legal Network Magazine, April 2004 Elizabeth Clark Unless you've been living on a commune in the wilderness lately, you've probably heard about the myriad regulations that have been established over the past couple of years to ensure proper corporate conduct. But what you might not realize is the impact that some of these regulations have in terms of data retention.
Read the Article E-Mail Storage: Your Next Mission-Critical Application Network Magazine, March 2004 By Doug Allen Emerging regulations require that businesses save virtually all e-mail. The results can be overwhelming-that is, unless you have the right intelligent management solution.
Read the Article Rein in E-mail Storage Storage Magazine, February 2004 Jerome Wendt Mark Diamond, CEO and president of the storage consulting company Contoural Inc., Los Altos, CA, thinks every e-mail should be saved. When organizations have e-mail deletion policies in place, Diamond says, users end up storing e-mails on local drives, CD-ROMs or elsewhere. In the short term, deletion policies may keep down the cost of storage, but in the long term they drive up the cost of management and discovery, Diamond says.
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