Electronic Data Discovery: It's All About Access

In last month's newsletter, author Trey Wilkins covered the impact of non-native file restoration on the field of e-discovery, how the method works, and how to eliminate data-retrieval barriers.

Non-native Restoration at Work: Case Studies

Non-native restoration has been used with great success in a variety of situations by numerous organizations, as the following examples demonstrate.

An international financial institution declared bankruptcy, and fraud was suspected. The organization had backed up its corporate records and communications on Legato tapes, which had been stored in a vault for some years. During that time, all personnel involved in data archival had been released, and all the software and affiliated documentation had been allowed to expire. A number of software companies had been hired to retrieve the data, but were unsuccessful. Finally, an e-discovery vendor with a background in non-native restoration was selected to convert the inaccessible data. After cataloging and identifying relevant files, e-mail documents were reconstructed that recreated financial dealings, which led to an indictment for fraud. The case continues.

In a case requiring close collaboration with the client, an e-discovery vendor recently supported an organization that was required to trace documents created and used by a small number of internal custodians. The materials needed to be produced within a couple of weeks. However, the required information was buried somewhere within 50 terabytes of data, the equivalent of trillions of pages of text. Given that an attorney can typically review about 500 pages a day, this amount of data would have required hundreds of thousands of “lawyer days,” if approached conventionally. To reduce this overwhelming amount of information, the non-native restoration vendor searched only the headers of the tapes to isolate the e-mails and user files of the selected internal custodians. By defining the required data at the front end ' rather than using a two-step process of cataloging the entire archive and then rebuilding each e-mail server to produce the files ' the vendor filtered the information and passed along all the unique content to the client. It took less than two weeks. Using conventional means, the project had been estimated to take months and cost many multiples more than the non-native approach.

In a similar situation, another customer had stored a pool of almost 1000 tapes. The organization's leadership, however, knew nothing about the systems on which the tapes were created or what content they contained. In order to whittle the task to a manageable size, the e-discovery vendor scanned only the headers of each tape. Performed in just 3 days for all the tapes, the header scans identified which tapes belonged to which server, and which tapes contained e-mail versus user file data. Immediately, the client was able to discount a significant portion of the tapes. As the process continued, the client soon could indicate exactly which tapes would be required for full restoration for the investigation, which saved considerable time and costs while remaining in compliance with the court order.

In a case concerning the theft of intellectual property, a firm suspected a former employee had stolen research concepts that were developed shortly before that person took a job with a competing firm. After the employee defected, the competitor introduced a product extraordinarily similar to the original organization's offering. Using non-native restoration, the e-discovery vendor was able to recreate and analyze a trail of e-mails, Microsoft Word documents and industry drawings that demonstrated with little doubt that the concepts had originated with the client.

Finding the Right Vendor

In cases like these, non-native restoration applications enabled retrieval of data that would have been considered inaccessible in the recent past. External vendors can quickly and cost-effectively access data even when no prior information about the host hardware, content, application or format is available.

In fact, these vendors are able to achieve unprecedented results more effectively than internal information technology resources, which are typically scaled to run at 70%-90% capacity. This makes the task of recalling and examining significant amounts of data nearly impossible ' especially in light of the fact that most legal or corporate investigations require review of between 30% and 50% of the organization's historical data.

When selecting an e-discovery vendor that specializes in non-native restoration, legal and corporate executives recommend considering the following factors.

• Established corporate history. Non-native restoration relies on the ability to access decades-old systems and programs, so vendors must be able to demonstrate years of experience in developing their internal resources. To be successful and economical, these vendors must have technological expertise in a broad range of hardware and software.
• Consultative and collaborative approach. Corporations often require access to great volumes of stored data. As a result, non-native restoration vendors must be willing to work closely with clients. This allows the two organizations to function as partners to better define the parameters of the project and plan a specific execution strategy.
• Confidentiality and customer service. Because e-discovery projects typically involve legal or corporate investigations, organizations must be confident that the non-native restoration vendor has an incontrovertible reputation. Also, the vendor must be dedicated to providing the client with superior customer service to ensure data-discovery requirements are met, or exceeded.
• Commitment to excellence. The problems inherent in e-discovery can be complex, and the best vendors are able to employ creative solutions to overcome even the unexpected challenge. For instance, vendors should be able to deal with damaged media and circumvent impediments that they encounter to achieve full retrieval and restoration wherever possible.

In last month's newsletter, author Trey Wilkins covered the impact of non-native file restoration on the field of e-discovery, how the method works, and how to eliminate data-retrieval barriers.

Non-native Restoration at Work: Case Studies

Non-native restoration has been used with great success in a variety of situations by numerous organizations, as the following examples demonstrate.

An international financial institution declared bankruptcy, and fraud was suspected. The organization had backed up its corporate records and communications on Legato tapes, which had been stored in a vault for some years. During that time, all personnel involved in data archival had been released, and all the software and affiliated documentation had been allowed to expire. A number of software companies had been hired to retrieve the data, but were unsuccessful. Finally, an e-discovery vendor with a background in non-native restoration was selected to convert the inaccessible data. After cataloging and identifying relevant files, e-mail documents were reconstructed that recreated financial dealings, which led to an indictment for fraud. The case continues.

In a case requiring close collaboration with the client, an e-discovery vendor recently supported an organization that was required to trace documents created and used by a small number of internal custodians. The materials needed to be produced within a couple of weeks. However, the required information was buried somewhere within 50 terabytes of data, the equivalent of trillions of pages of text. Given that an attorney can typically review about 500 pages a day, this amount of data would have required hundreds of thousands of “lawyer days,” if approached conventionally. To reduce this overwhelming amount of information, the non-native restoration vendor searched only the headers of the tapes to isolate the e-mails and user files of the selected internal custodians. By defining the required data at the front end ' rather than using a two-step process of cataloging the entire archive and then rebuilding each e-mail server to produce the files ' the vendor filtered the information and passed along all the unique content to the client. It took less than two weeks. Using conventional means, the project had been estimated to take months and cost many multiples more than the non-native approach.

In a similar situation, another customer had stored a pool of almost 1000 tapes. The organization's leadership, however, knew nothing about the systems on which the tapes were created or what content they contained. In order to whittle the task to a manageable size, the e-discovery vendor scanned only the headers of each tape. Performed in just 3 days for all the tapes, the header scans identified which tapes belonged to which server, and which tapes contained e-mail versus user file data. Immediately, the client was able to discount a significant portion of the tapes. As the process continued, the client soon could indicate exactly which tapes would be required for full restoration for the investigation, which saved considerable time and costs while remaining in compliance with the court order.

In a case concerning the theft of intellectual property, a firm suspected a former employee had stolen research concepts that were developed shortly before that person took a job with a competing firm. After the employee defected, the competitor introduced a product extraordinarily similar to the original organization's offering. Using non-native restoration, the e-discovery vendor was able to recreate and analyze a trail of e-mails, Microsoft Word documents and industry drawings that demonstrated with little doubt that the concepts had originated with the client.

Finding the Right Vendor

In cases like these, non-native restoration applications enabled retrieval of data that would have been considered inaccessible in the recent past. External vendors can quickly and cost-effectively access data even when no prior information about the host hardware, content, application or format is available.

In fact, these vendors are able to achieve unprecedented results more effectively than internal information technology resources, which are typically scaled to run at 70%-90% capacity. This makes the task of recalling and examining significant amounts of data nearly impossible ' especially in light of the fact that most legal or corporate investigations require review of between 30% and 50% of the organization's historical data.

When selecting an e-discovery vendor that specializes in non-native restoration, legal and corporate executives recommend considering the following factors.

• Established corporate history. Non-native restoration relies on the ability to access decades-old systems and programs, so vendors must be able to demonstrate years of experience in developing their internal resources. To be successful and economical, these vendors must have technological expertise in a broad range of hardware and software.
• Consultative and collaborative approach. Corporations often require access to great volumes of stored data. As a result, non-native restoration vendors must be willing to work closely with clients. This allows the two organizations to function as partners to better define the parameters of the project and plan a specific execution strategy.
• Confidentiality and customer service. Because e-discovery projects typically involve legal or corporate investigations, organizations must be confident that the non-native restoration vendor has an incontrovertible reputation. Also, the vendor must be dedicated to providing the client with superior customer service to ensure data-discovery requirements are met, or exceeded.
• Commitment to excellence. The problems inherent in e-discovery can be complex, and the best vendors are able to employ creative solutions to overcome even the unexpected challenge. For instance, vendors should be able to deal with damaged media and circumvent impediments that they encounter to achieve full retrieval and restoration wherever possible.