Non-Native Restoration at Work: Case Studies
Non-native restoration has been used with great success in a variety of situations by numerous organisations, as these hypothetical examples demonstrate. The examples are common to cases undertaken across the nation.
An international financial institution declared bankruptcy and fraud was suspected. The organisation had backed-up its corporate records and communications on to 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 had been unsuccessful. Finally, an electronic 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 which recreated financial dealings leading to an indictment for fraud. The case is ongoing.
In a case requiring close collaboration with the client, an electronic discovery vendor recently supported an organisation 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 data 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 to complete the task. 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 1,000 tapes. However, the organisation?s leadership knew nothing about the systems upon which they were created or what content they contained since they were inherited when the organisation was acquired. All information technology personnel from the previous organization had moved on to new employers and all knowledge about the data pool was lost. Because of an ongoing investigation, the new owner was required to produce data from all tape assets. In order to whittle the task to a manageable size, the electronic discovery vendor scanned only the headers of each tape. Performed in just three 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 was soon able to indicate exactly which tapes would be required for full restoration for the investigation, thereby saving 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 had defected, the competitor introduced a product extraordinarily similar to the original organisation?s offering. Using non-native restoration, the electronic discovery vendor was able to re-create and analyse 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 the retrieval of data that would have been considered inaccessible in the recent past. External vendors, armed with tools and resources developed through years of electronic data discovery projects, are able to quickly and cost effectively access data even when no prior knowledge 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 percent capacity. This makes the task of re-calling 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 percent of the organisation?s historical data.
When selecting an electronic discovery vendor that specialises in non-native restoration, legal and corporate executives recommend considering the following factors.
? Established corporate history. Non-native restoration relies upon the ability to access decades-old systems and programs, so vendors must be able to demonstrate years of experience in developing their internal resources. In order to be successful and economical, these vendors must have technological expertise in a broad range of hardware and software, including systems long obsolete.
? 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 organisations to function as partners to better define the parameters of the project and plan a specific execution strategy – which, in turn, will allow the vendor to produce the appropriate data in the most efficient manner possible.
? Confidentiality and customer service. Because electronic discovery projects typically involve legal or corporate investigations, organisations must be confident that the non-native restoration vendor has an incontrovertible reputation. In addition, 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 electronic discovery can be complex and the best vendors are able to call upon creative solutions to overcome even the unexpected. 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.
*Originally appeared in Law Journal Newsletters’ e-Discovery Law & Strategy newsletter.
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