Data Formats

Always a True Original

Our solutions were designed to store data in its original format. e-mail messages, for example, are stored as files in RFC 2822 format, which is the standard format for transmitting e-mail using SMTP. Using original formats has several benefits:

Independence

Unlike our competitors, we confidently stand behind our product and do not use any form of vendor lock-in, such as proprietary data formats or segmentation of documents. These serve no purpose other than making it difficult to switch to a different archive platform. Our philosophy is not to bind customers to our product by creating artificial dependencies, but to convince customers to remain with EMA® through continuous technological innovation.

Long-Term Compatibility

Using well-known standardized formats ensures that your data can still be read in the future. Innovation cycles are short in the IT industry, while the legally required lifetime of an archive is very long. Using standardized formats also makes it a lot easier to switch mail servers in your organization.

Legal Compliance

From a legal standpoint, transforming data from one format to another is a risky undertaking. Even if the content appears to be unchanged on a high level, there is always a chance that information got lost or modified during the transformation process. This can cause complications and could even lead to archived documents losing their value as evidence. Moreover, data conversion makes it impossible to guarantee authenticity, and worst of all, once transformed, the original data is often not retained. The approach used by ARTEC other hand, provides full legal certainty.