How PeDALS PST Archiver Simplifies Email Retention and Compliance

How PeDALS PST Archiver Simplifies Email Retention and ComplianceEmail retention and regulatory compliance are major concerns for organizations of every size. Left unmanaged, PST files (Outlook Personal Storage Table files) accumulate across user desktops and network shares, creating legal risk, backup headaches, and storage costs. PeDALS PST Archiver addresses these challenges by automating PST discovery, centralizing archival, and enforcing retention and e-discovery policies. This article explains how PeDALS PST Archiver works, the compliance problems it solves, deployment considerations, and practical best practices for administrators.

The PST problem: risk, cost, and complexity

PST files were designed to store personal copies of mail and archives on local machines. Over time they create problems:

• Silos of discoverable data: PSTs scatter custodial email outside central servers, making legal discovery and compliance searches incomplete.
• Retention gaps: Without centralized policy enforcement, important records can be deleted or retained improperly.
• Backup and storage overhead: PSTs on user devices complicate backup strategies and consume disk and backup media.
• Security risks: PSTs on insecure endpoints can expose sensitive information if devices are lost or compromised.
• Operational burden: IT teams spend significant time locating, collecting, and processing PSTs during litigation or audits.

PeDALS PST Archiver targets these pain points by centralizing and automating the lifecycle of PST archives.

Core capabilities of PeDALS PST Archiver

PeDALS PST Archiver combines discovery, ingestion, archiving, policy enforcement, and e-discovery integration. Key capabilities include:

• Automatic discovery: scans endpoints, network shares, and servers for PST files with configurable schedules.
• Central ingestion and normalization: imports PST content into a central archive, preserving metadata and folder structure.
• Policy-driven retention: applies organizational retention and disposition rules to migrated items.
• Chain-of-custody and audit trails: logs actions for defensible compliance and legal holds.
• Search and e-discovery integration: enables fast, cross-mailbox search and export for legal teams.
• Secure storage and encryption: stores archived content in secure, access-controlled repositories.
• Reporting and dashboards: provides visibility into PST inventories, migration progress, and policy compliance.

How PeDALS simplifies retention and compliance

1. Centralized, searchable archive
   By moving PST content into a central archive, PeDALS eliminates scattered silos. Emails become part of the governed mailstore and can be searched with enterprise e-discovery tools. This ensures compliance teams have a complete dataset during audits or litigation.

2. Policy automation and consistent retention
   PeDALS applies retention rules globally or by custodial group, ensuring consistent preservation or deletion per organizational policy or regulatory requirement (e.g., SOX, GDPR, HIPAA). Automation reduces human error and the administrative load of manual retention management.

3. Defensible chain-of-custody and audit logs
   Every ingestion, export, or policy action is logged with timestamps and operator details, creating an auditable trail. This defensible chain-of-custody is essential during legal discovery and regulatory examinations.

4. Rapid response to legal holds
   When litigation or regulatory inquiries arise, PeDALS can place custodians, mailboxes, or PSTs on legal hold and prevent disposition. Because archived content is centralized, holds are enforced immediately and consistently.

5. Reduced backup and endpoint risk
   Removing PSTs from endpoints decreases backup sizes and mitigates data exposure risk from lost or stolen devices. Encrypted, access-controlled archives reduce the attack surface for sensitive email data.

6. Improved search performance and e-discovery readiness
   Normalized content and indexed metadata accelerate searches across formerly disparate PSTs. Integration with e-discovery tools streamlines export in legal formats (e.g., EML, PST, or native message formats).

Deployment models and integration

PeDALS PST Archiver supports multiple deployment topologies to fit organizational needs:

• On-premises archive server: keeps data inside corporate boundaries for highly regulated industries.
• Hybrid deployment: archive stored on-premises with cloud-based indexing or e-discovery integration.
• Managed service or SaaS archive: removes infrastructure management and offers rapid scalability.

Integrations commonly used with PeDALS include enterprise mail servers (Exchange, Exchange Online), identity providers (Active Directory/Azure AD), backup systems, and e-discovery platforms. Connectors and APIs enable automated workflows with ticketing, SIEMs, and compliance systems.

Migration and operational best practices

• Inventory first: run PeDALS’ discovery to quantify PST volume, age, and custodians.