Archiving messages

Message archivingcan take different forms, and serve different purposes. For record keeping (especially legal compliance) purposes, it may be desired to retain copies of "all"  messages that have passed through the Messaging Server, or to retain  copies of more specifically selected messages; in this sense, the  "archive" is a long term record or history of message  traffic, where this historical record of messages is intended for  administrative/legal use, rather than (normally) being accessed  directly by end e-mail users. For operational efficiency purposes, it may be desired to "archive" messages in the sense of  "off-loading" older/larger/less frequently accessed messages  to "more economical" storage, that is nevertheless still  accessible; in this sense, the "archive" is an  implementation-achieved efficiency measure, preferrably remaining  reasonably conveniently usable by end users.

From the design point of view, these two distinct purposes for archiving mean somewhat different requirements for message access. For compliance archiving, the primary focus is on thoroughness of the scope  of message capture, while the requirements for accessing messages are  fewer; in particular, whether the message archive is accessible to end  users may be optional. While for operational archiving, not all messages may need to be archived---but those messages that are archived  must still be reasonably conveniently retrieved by end users.

See also:
 * Choosing which messages to archive
 * Message identifier generation
 * AXS:One archive integration
 * Archive spamfilterN_config_file
 * Message Store archive options
 * Message capture