Records Management and Archiving Services for Microsoft Cloud Storage

Open Text Corp. is unveiling first-of-its-kind records management and archiving capabilities for Microsoft’s new cloud-based operating system Windows Azure, which Microsoft announced at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles. Open Text will incorporate these cloud-based capabilities into its Enterprise Library Services offering early next year. Enterprise Library Services is one of a series of software services from Open Text that let customers integrate and extend ECM technology across their organizations.

With the new capabilities, customers will be able to manage Microsoft SharePoint content, Microsoft Outlook email and other business information they want to store on Windows Azure, allowing them to apply records rules, archive content, and address compliance mandates. The new services will give customers the integrated records management and archiving capabilities they need to better leverage cloud-based services, while avoiding the high costs of maintaining their own storage infrastructure. Open Text, the industry’s largest independent ECM vendor, is uniquely positioned to offer this solution as the company’s ECM solutions are storage agnostic.

“The dominant conversation in businesses today is how to operate in these uncertain economic times. Cost savings and compliance are the top concerns,” said Jens Rabe, Vice President of Open Text’s Microsoft Solutions Group. “Maintaining your own storage infrastructure is costly and Windows Azure offers the power of ‘storage in the clouds’ as an alternative. With the cost pressures in many businesses today, cloud-based storage is an attractive option.”

Rabe adds: “Compliance and its impact on stored information is an ever-present issue for customers. Our offering will give customers a way to manage compliance and archive content through a solution designed specifically for Microsoft’s Window Azure. It will offer customers a faster, less capital intensive route to building a long-term solution for managing and archiving content.”

The records management and archive services will provide administrators with the option of saving content on Windows Azure, in addition to other on-premise storage devices. End users won’t see any difference between the content stored locally and the content stored in the cloud. For security, Windows Azure provides strong service level agreements that complement the encryption capabilities and other protective features that Open Text leverages in its software.

“Open Text has demonstrated tremendous vision and agility in the development of an archiving and records management solution built on Windows Azure,” said Robert Wahbe, Corporate Vice President, Connected Systems Division at Microsoft. “As an industry partner, Open Text continues to provide our mutual customers with value by embracing and extending their investments in the Microsoft platform.”

Open Text’s Enterprise Library Services provide the foundation for a single, trusted repository that delivers integrated records management, metadata management, archive and search capabilities for all business content in an organization including content stored in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server sites, SAP applications, file systems, email and Open Text content repositories. With Enterprise Library Services, content can be managed, archived and stored consistently across the entire organization, based on a lifecycle defined by records retention and disposition rules and the value of the content to the organization.

Open Text’s Leadership in ECM Solutions for Microsoft
Open Text is a leader in delivering ECM solutions for the Microsoft platform, including the industry’s widest range of solutions that extend Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. In addition to content lifecycle management services for SharePoint, Open Text also offers a case management development framework for SharePoint and specialized vertical market solutions. Other solutions for Microsoft include email management and Open Text Enterprise Connect, which lets users create customized views of content from multiple systems, such as SAP or Oracle, in Microsoft Outlook. Open Text is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner.