Working for an information management company I might be a bit jaded toward the lack of visibility TV dramas provide into the discovery process. However I do know it’s unlikely you’re going to find key evidence or a “smoking gun” wadded up in a trash can in the bad guy’s office – though it seems to happen a lot on TV. No, more than likely you are going to have to wade through terabytes or even petabyes of electronic data from multiple custodians spread across email, file shares, laptops, document management systems, etc.  Your first thoughts are probably, “How long is this going to take and how much is it going to cost?”

Organizations must expect the unexpected and be prepared to deal with several concurrent matters with varying electronic discovery requirements. In a recent whitepaper from Brian Babineau, senior analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group, he discusses the often unpredictable and challenging eDiscovery process – and the opportunities that in-house eDiscovery solutions provide for real world improvement including:

• Incorporate All Data – ensure that your eDiscovery solution is comprehensive and goes beyond email to include other corporate ESI sources – locating the data you need to make informed case strategy decisions and minimizing your risk for non-disclosure sanctions.

• Timeliness Matter – other than meeting tight deadlines, organizations can benefit from speeding up the eDiscovery process by meeting the duty to preserve early, more accurately predicting case budgets, preparing for initial case assessments, and reducing reliance on outsourced review resources when pressed for time.

• Resource Scalability – utilizing a holistic eDiscovery solution, corporations can ensure that all departments and users involved in the legal discovery process are not overburdened by disparate tools and technologies, and that productivity isn’t impacted as the amount of corporate information and number of matters continues to grow.

As Mr. Babineau states in the paper, “Electronic discovery, when supported by the right technology has the potential to deliver benefits greater than a simple reduction of legal service provider costs. Corporate counsel can near-instantaneously analyze data to see what should be collected and preserved, enabling them to make strategic decisions sooner in the legal process, and swiftly adapt as new information is discovered.”

Perhaps as more organizations adopt in-house eDiscovery solutions, the legal discovery process will become more intelligent, less cumbersome, and less costly. And who knows, one day it may start to resemble the legal dramas we watch on TV. 

For more in-depth information, download the complete whitepaper from Enterprise Strategy Group.

“StoredIQ continues to deliver an industry leading product that provides customers with deep intelligence and understanding into their data and gives them the ability to quickly act on that information – this is why StoredIQ is again on our list of Trend-Setting Products.”

Hugh McKellar, editor in chief of KMWorld

StoredIQ recently announced the availability of its 6th generation award-winning solution. StoredIQ 6.0 is designed to empower corporate counsel with a legal-friendly, best-of-breed application – eDiscoveryManager – that addresses the wide range of legal discovery requirements, including search, identification, collection, early case assessment (ECA) and analysis, as well as legal hold and review. By integrating an easy to use eDiscovery application with the power of the StoredIQ platform, legal teams have a single solution to make more informed strategic decisions in less time, cut the cost of litigation and reduce legal risk.

We are very pleased to again be recognized by KMWorld and its judges. The continued recognition as a Trend-Setting Product of the Year is a testament to our dedication and commitment to enabling organizations to manage their information according to its business value and reduce cost and risk in the process.

Organizations can leverage the combined, comprehensive set of classifications to better manage and control all of their unstructured data to address their eDiscovery and information management needs.  Based on the classifications applied to unstructured data by our combined solution, StoredIQ can automatically execute records management, legal holds and document retention and disposition policies, thereby reducing costs, mitigating risks, and simplifying information governance.

“Classifying unstructured information is increasingly important as today’s organizations face mounting pressure to establish and maintain effective corporate governance strategies and respond timely to litigation requests. The combined data classification capabilities of StoredIQ and FCI will help organizations identify and manage information according to its business value, retain only necessary records, while meeting compliance requirements and reducing legal risk and storage costs.“ — Eric Jewett, Director of Marketing, Windows Server at Microsoft

StoredIQ can leverage the data classifications inherent in Microsoft’s File Server and apply policies to automatically act on that data including copying, moving, deleting, changing security information, placing data on legal hold, etc. This is a powerful resource, allowing companies to accelerate the understanding of their unstructured data based on the value of their information.

For more information send an email to info@storediq.com.

– Brian Babineau, senior analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group

Building on our industry-leading platform for information management and eDiscovery solutions, we’ve designed StoredIQ 6.0 to empower corporate counsel with a legal-friendly, best-of-breed application – eDiscoveryManager – that addresses the wide range of legal discovery requirements, including search, identification, collection, early case assessment (ECA) and analysis, as well as legal hold and review. By integrating an easy to use eDiscovery application with the power of our StoredIQ platform, we’re giving legal teams a single solution to make more informed strategic decisions in less time, cut the cost of litigation and reduce legal risk.

With 6.0, we are excited to introduce a new sophisticated user interface coupled with a step-by-step, straightforward legal-focused workflow that enables legal teams to dexterously drive a matter through the entire eDiscovery process. StoredIQ 6.0 also gives inside counsel the ability to perform real-time analysis on data in its native location, prior to preservation and collection, to quickly perform ECA. We have also made architectural enhancements that solidify our industry-leading speed and performance of data identification and collection, allowing our customers to meet time-sensitive compliance, governance and legal discovery requirements, even in petabyte-scale environments. Some of the new features in StoredIQ v6.0 include:

StoredIQ eDiscoveryManager™

StoredIQ 6.0 includes eDiscoveryManager, an innovative application built to run on our Intelligent Information Management Platform.  eDiscoveryManager leverages a refined user interface designed to guide legal users through the eDiscovery process .  In addition, user-friendly analysis tools help to make sense of unwieldy amounts of discovered data; the user interface includes both graphical analysis and matter management dashboards to facilitate early first-pass review.  And throughout the eDiscovery process, the StoredIQ Scoreboard™ displays a running count of the files eliminated from consideration, automatically calculating the potential savings from the downstream review cycle.

StoredIQ AnalyzeAnywhere™

StoredIQ’s novel technology, AnalyzeAnywhere, enables early case assessment (ECA) prior to preservation and collection, without requiring the movement of data from where it natively resides. With the powerful ability to perform early case analysis on data “in the wild”, legal counsel can assess the merits of a dispute, formulate a legal strategy, and make decisions concerning a matter significantly faster than traditional ECA.

StoredIQ Scoreboard: Custodian Analysis by Email Domain

Prior to any collection of data, StoredIQ AnalyzeAnywhere gives legal counsel the ability to dynamically tune searches, review analytics, and modify custodian lists to accurately narrow the preserved and collected set of data subject to the “duty to preserve,” mitigating further legal risks and providing a legally defensible audit trail. By using AnalyzeAnywhere, legal counsel can reduce the potentially matter-relevant ESI to the smallest legally defensible, yet qualitatively enriched, data set, thereby dramatically lowering the cost of downstream formal review.

Market-Leading Performance and Scalability

We’ve also extended our performance lead in indexing and processing of unstructured enterprise data with an updated platform architecture. Enhancements have been made to the entire StoredIQ IIM Platform appliance, including:

• An upgraded 64-bit software stack, including the operating system, applications, database and search/index engines;
• Server nodes have been upgraded to industry-leading Dell™ PowerEdge™ R610 with state-of-the-art Intel® Xeon® Processor E5520;
• On-board storage now leverages best-in-class NetApp® NAS.

With these and other architectural enhancements, a single StoredIQ appliance can achieve performance levels of 24TB of full-text indexing per day, and through a federated solution, performance can scale to well over 100TB of full-text indexing per day.  In addition, StoredIQ 6.0 now boasts embedded disaster recovery technology as well as support for Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint 2010.

The StoredIQ Intelligent Information Management Platform v6.0 is available immediately. For pricing and purchase information contact info@storediq.com, or for more information:

• Download ESG Whitepaper – StoredIQ Accelerates Electronic Discovery While Providing Cost Predictability
• Download StoredIQ Whitepaper – Managing and Accelerating the eDiscovery Process with StoredIQ eDiscoveryManager
• Visit our new website -  www.StoredIQ.com

The inherently litigious environment of the health care industry, exponentially-increasing amounts of data, compounded with strict compliance requirements, are forcing hospitals and health care providers to get a better handle on their electronic information. This is not without its challenges, according to a recent article in FierceEMR, “EHR implementations open ‘cans of compliance worms,’” which discusses decisions and issues that need to be addressed when adopting EHR technology.

In the article, Cheryl Rice, VP and chief corporate responsibility officer for Cincinnati-based Catholic Health care Partners notes that one of the ‘four pressing issues’ hospitals face while converting to EHRs is audits and litigation defense. This speaks to the growing amount of discoverable information held in EHR systems, which means it is important that as health care providers increase their use of EHR systems, they also implement an information management and proactive eDiscovery solution, to help ensure compliance, and reduce litigation.

StoredIQ’s Intelligent Information Management Platform has helped many companies – including a leading health care provider – address enterprise-level information management. With our auditable solution, companies can automate their records retention and disposition strategy to comply with corporate information governance guidelines (IP, HR, trade secrets, etc.), as well as regulatory compliance mandates (PII, PCI, HIPAA, etc.) – reducing overall risk and cost. StoredIQ provides health care organizations with a range of business-critical benefits, including the ability to:

• Comply with corporate policy and government regulations
• Reduce risk, preempt litigation and avoid fines
• Protect sensitive, business-critical information
• Automate management of storage and retention policies
• Optimize storage and delete unnecessary information

As the health care industry moves toward greater use of electronic medical records, hospitals, clinics, pharmacies – any organization that is managing patient information – should have a solution that helps meet escalating compliance requirements, mitigate risk and minimize cost.

For more information on StoredIQ’s Intelligent Information Management Solution email info@storediq.com.

The StoredIQ Intelligent Information Management Platform is an enterprise-class, software-based appliance designed to manage the functional intersection of eDiscovery, information governance, records management and storage management. By providing an in-depth assessment of unstructured data across the enterprise, StoredIQ gives organizations critical visibility into and control over their business content to make more informed decisions about the management, retention, and disposition of their data. StoredIQ discovers, assesses, and manages data across the industry’s broadest range of data sources, including storage, email, archiving, content, document and record management systems.

Though eDiscovery remains the strongest driver for implementing robust information governance, corporations are facing increased risk from tougher privacy mandates and regulatory compliance, as well as the need to secure and protect data, all pain points that a solid information management solution like StoredIQ can address. eDSG will market StoredIQ to its Global 2000 client base both directly and through its international consortium of independent consultants, consulting organizations, litigation service providers and eDiscovery technology vendors.  In addition, StoredIQ will have access to the breadth of consulting, services and technologies from the eDSG International Consortium to help corporations address their legal and regulatory risk through strong information management strategies and technologies.

eDSG and its international consortium of eDiscovery consultants represent an excellent addition to our channel strategy. We are delighted to be working with eDSG and its consortium members to leverage synergies and to deliver the best eDiscovery and compliance solution to the market.

In addition to our IBM Information Archive integration, StoredIQ discovers, assesses, and manages unstructured data across the industry’s broadest range of data sources, including email systems and archives, storage file systems, workstations, NAS systems, retention platforms, document management platforms, directory services, and WORM archives.  Like the integration with IBM Information Archive, all of StoredIQ’s data connectors are agentless, and do not require installation of any software on the data source, nor any additional, interceding hardware such as a gateway. This design feature is critical to any large enterprise deployment in order to enable scalability and maintainability.

All data connectors from StoredIQ, including our latest for IBM Information Archive, are optimized for performance, scalability, and depth, and with particular attention to the eDiscovery-centric issues of audit trails, chain of custody, and data preservation. This allows StoredIQ to manage electronic information more efficiently and quickly, reducing eDiscovery and storage costs while mitigating risk.

For more information about the benefits of the joint solution, please contact info@storediq.com.

Although litigious situations like the current Gulf Coast oil spill and Hurricane Ike may be extreme, they illustrate the importance of having an immediate and insightful view into electronically stored data across the enterprise.  They also point to the growing trend of law firms’ increasing their involvement with their client’s in-house technology, in an effort to improve cost savings, increase cost predictability and efficiencies.

For one particular insurance firm, in a case related to Hurricane Ike, outside counsel recommended that the company find a technology solution that could streamline, expedite, and ultimately reduce the costs of litigation.  Given the potential magnitude of the cases it was facing, the agency needed a technology solution that could handle constant usage, execute several concurrent tasks and support multiple users.

Enter StoredIQ’s Intelligent Information Management Platform.  StoredIQ can begin indexing data within just a few hours of being deployed, and offered the agency the high availability and scalability it needed.

The agency used StoredIQ’s one-time, fixed cost solution to eliminate processing and collection expenses by their outside litigation services vendor, saving money, and realizing a positive return on-investment in an exceptionally short amount of time.  StoredIQ also helped the agency avoid duplicate or redundant review, which would have added more costs.  Although StoredIQ discovered, indexed, and managed more terabytes of information, the amount of data that was ultimately sent to outside counsel for formal review was considerably less, and more relevant to the matter.

The old model of lawyers manually reviewing every document is being replaced as outside counsel look more to technology solutions to provide significant time and cost savings. Tell us- have you seen a shift in outside counsel’s focus on in-house technology?

Murphy suggests viewing eDiscovery as an integral part of the organization’s infrastructure. He says, “Ideally, the right collection tool will provide a single interface to search across all information sources, connectors to the most important information sources (and the ability to easily connect to more as needed), and the scalability to parse through a large volume of information.”

At StoredIQ we understand the critical need for legally defensible eDiscovery. Our Intelligent eDiscovery solution allows organizations to take control of their unstructured data enterprise-wide, providing visibility and control over all their business content, and enabling better business decisions, while reducing costs, and lowering legal risks. StoredIQ provides a seamless, defensible approach to eDiscovery, with rapid response to litigation and investigations, allowing organizations to:

• Locate all potentially relevant electronically stored information
• Search and analyze data without moving it from its native environment
• Manage potentially relevant documents in a legally defensible manner
• Generate customizable reports and detailed data topology maps leveraging advanced analytics

Often times, the eDiscovery process is too fragmented, and in order to perform identification, collection, preservation, analysis and processing, legal IT teams need to use three or even more stand-alone applications. But at StoredIQ we’ve addressed this problem, with one solution that not only accesses all your data sources across the enterprise without requiring additional interceding hardware or gateways, but also covers a wide range of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM), including Information Management, Identification, Collection, Preservation, Analysis, and Processing – including the ability to conduct early case assessment “in the wild” with no movement of data.

In sports there is a saying that goes something like this.  Often, the best defense is a great offense.  By proactively implementing an eDiscovery solution that can cover multiple phases of EDRM, organizations can take the offensive in reducing costs and mitigating legal and compliance risks.   That sounds like any party taking that approach will have the upper hand should they find themselves in a legal situation.

Architectural enhancements have been made to the entire StoredIQ appliance, including the software, hardware and on-board storage. Key enhancements include:

• An upgraded 64-bit software stack, including the operating system, applications, database and search/index engines;
• Server nodes have been upgraded to industry-leading Dell™ PowerEdge™ R610 with state-of-the-art Intel® Xeon® Processor E5520;
• On-board storage now leverages best-in-class NetApp® NAS.

With these and other architectural enhancements, a single StoredIQ appliance can achieve performance levels of 24TB of full-text indexing per day, and through a federated solution, performance can scale to well over 100TB of full-text indexing per day.

With the exponential growth of data within enterprises, CIOs now talk in terms of petabytes, not terabytes. For organizations to maintain insight into all their data, their information management solution has to scale both in terms of capacity and performance. As an example of our performance capabilities, one of our large enterprise customers reported 17.5 TB of full-text indexing per day and 175 TB of metadata indexing per day with one of our mid-range appliances. At StoredIQ, we place a high importance on precision when identifying and collecting relevant data, but as important is being able to quickly cull through large data sets to allow our customers to make timely and informed decisions.

By discovering a compliance issue earlier, customers can remediate and mitigate legal and governance risk before it becomes damaging and expensive to the corporation. And, by assessing a matter sooner in the eDiscovery process, inside counsel can make more informed, and therefore better, strategic decisions potentially saving significant costs in legal fees. The latest StoredIQ architecture expedites the entire eDiscovery process, including the identification, analysis, collection, and processing phases while minimizing the impact on custodians as well as the burden on the network within the IT infrastructure.

For more information on StoredIQ’s integrated appliance solution engineered for high performance eDiscovery and information governance email info@storediq.com.