e-Discovery in The Cloud Not As Simple As You Think

Cloud computing is a hot and controversial topic. One recent event highlights the issue that the cloud may not be worth the initial hype.

Two years ago, the City of Los Angeles approved a $7.25 million budget to move its e-mail and productivity infrastructure to Google Apps with the assistance of a systems integration contractor. However, the migration has still not been completed because the Los Angeles Police Department and other agencies are unsatisfied with security related to the handling of criminal history data. The city is also demanding Google and the contractor provide credits to keep an on-premise GroupWise System until November 2012 while it completes the migration. Additional credits are being demanded because “e-Discovery will not be implemented.”

The City of Los Angeles is no different than many other organizations increasingly adopting cloud-based solutions for activities like email archiving, collaboration and storage. Indeed, it is difficult to avoid the buzz-phrase “the cloud” across the information management spectrum. The city’s dissatisfaction, however, highlights problems that are typical of ambitious efforts to transition to an entirely cloud-based solution. The events in L.A. also bring up a thorny issue that many people don’t even think about: eDiscovery in the cloud.

While organizations are utilizing cloud-based solutions more and more, eDiscovery from those solutions often remains an afterthought. In many cases, there is little consideration of how information in the cloud will be placed on legal hold, or how it will be accessed, reviewed and produced in response to litigation or regulatory requests. While there seems to be a widespread assumption that information in the cloud is at an organization’s fingertips at all times with the touch of a search button, that is not necessarily the case.

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Source: forbes.com
By: Barry Murphy