Barracuda can archive email messages from any standards-compliant email server or service, including cloud services such as Office 365 and G Suite, as well as email servers such as Exchange, Domino, and GroupWise. SMTP journal forwarding is used to capture an accurate and unmodified copy of each new message at the time it is sent or received, and the Message Archiver can also retrieve messages directly from email servers using the IMAP or POP3 protocols.

Instant messaging is an increasingly popular form of communication, often used as an alternative to more traditional email messages. Barracuda can archive instant message (IM) conversations, conferences, and other content from both the on-premises and online Office 365 versions of Lync and Skype for Business. IM content is kept in the same secure archive as email data, providing a single solution for organizations to meet their archiving, compliance, and e-discovery requirements.

Existing email data can be archived directly into Barracuda from Microsoft Exchange and Office 365 using the automated MAPI import capability. Data from most other email servers can be imported using PST files. There is no restriction or additional charge for using either of these approaches to archive existing data.

Data stored in Office 365 and Exchange includes appointments, contacts, tasks, and notes as well as email messages. Barracuda can import these items and manage them in the same way, so they will be retained in accordance with any retention policies that have been defined, and can be included in e-discovery searches. They can also be placed on legal hold for as long as necessary, and exported out if needed subsequently.

Email data stored in Public Folders in Exchange and Office 365 can be archived and then managed and searched in the same way as all other email data. This includes retaining it in line with defined retention policies, and placing it on legal hold if required.

Barracuda can replicate the folder structure from each individual user’s Exchange or Office 365 mailbox into their archive, making it very easy for them to search and retrieve historical data, and providing a consistent user experience across both current and archived data.

End users can access their archived data online via the role‑based web interface. This provides both basic and advanced search capabilities, and enables them to download and respond to any of their archived messages.

Barracuda provides a multi-function for Microsoft Outlook add‑in that enables users to access and work with all their archived data directly from within their familiar Outlook client. It delivers a fully integrated experience which includes a combined search capability across both mailbox and archived data, and it can also retain a local cache of archived messages to provide ongoing access while they are offline.

A standalone search utility is available for Windows and Mac OS X, providing a convenient alternative way to access and respond to archived messages from your desktop, without having to log in to your Outlook client or the web interface.

The Barracuda Message Archiver makes it easy for you to export selected data on both an ad‑hoc and a scheduled basis at any time, without incurring additional costs. This capability is available to both administrators and end users, and is managed through the standard web interface. Data can be exported in either PST or EML format.

Barracuda provides customizable email retention policies, which ensure that an accurate and fully compliant copy of every email sent or received will be retained for the entire period required for that specific data. Retention policies ensure that an accurate and fully compliant copy of every email sent or received will be retained for the entire period required for that specific data. These policies include data in public folders, and can easily be configured to meet the most complex compliance and business needs.

You can designate one or more auditors who can apply legal holds on specific information. Legal hold prevents the data from being tampered with until the hold expires or is removed. Barracuda can apply individual litigation holds to selected data on a case-by-case basis. Each hold will secure the data and prevent it from being amended or deleted for as long as required for each case, regardless of any other retention rules.

Individual messages returned in search results can be tagged for easy identification. These tags can also be included in subsequent search criteria and facilitate activities such as classification and e-discovery.

Barracuda offers easy-to-use search capabilities, ranging from the most basic search by a user for a misplaced email, to advanced Boolean search strategies for audits and e-discovery. Search parameters can be saved and reused, and text searches may include contents, attachments, and a wide range of metadata fields.

Barracuda preserves an accurate record of all system activities, helping you maintain and demonstrate regulatory compliance. The search capability allows administrators to focus in on a specific set of activities, and you can easily export audit data if needed for subsequent analysis or reporting.

Barracuda lets you define a broad range of policies specifying acceptable sources and content for both outgoing and incoming email traffic. If a user violates these policies, administrators receive an immediate alert.

Barracuda is very easy for customers to set up themselves by following our step-by-step guide. There are no additional implementation or setup charges, and implementation for most customers typically takes less than one hour.

Barracuda archives data using industry-standard formats, so organizations can easily extract and export their archived data to PST or EML format whenever needed. This avoids the “data lock in” situation found with products from other vendors which store archived data in proprietary data formats.

Barracuda maximizes storage efficiency by using single-instance storage, which eliminates all duplicate copies of message bodies and attachments. Full message compression further minimizes your ongoing storage requirements, and reduces backup windows for your Message Archiver appliance.

Multiple Barracuda Message Archiver appliances may be clustered for high availability or solution expansion. This enables you to expand capacity as your business grows, without over-provisioning resources before they’re needed.

Data on the Message Archiver appliance can be mirrored to the Barracuda Cloud for backup and disaster recovery purposes, or for longer-term storage. Scale up your capacity by extending your archive into the cloud for secure and cost-effective off-site storage.

The Message Archiver can optionally employ Message Stubbing to reduce size of your Exchange Information Store, shrink Exchange backup windows, and simplify Exchange management. This process replaces the original copy of each email with a shortened stub, while retaining seamless access to all messages for end-users.

The Barracuda Cloud Control web-based management portal enables administrators to manage the configuration and operation of all their Barracuda services and devices centrally from a single location. This simple interface makes it easy for small and medium-sized organizations to implement and support their Barracuda archiving solution with minimal IT overhead.

Barracuda integrates with LDAP services such as Active Directory and Azure AD to simplify the ongoing management of user-level access controls. Additional users can easily be set up and managed locally if needed, and there is no charge to retain historical data for users who have left.

A variety of predefined user roles are built in, to enable you to easily control individual users’ access to archived data, and to manage their use of specific archiving features and functions. Granular access permissions for auditors can be configured to restrict access to specified sets of data.

Federated search provides an integrated search capability for data archived across multiple Message Archiver appliances and the Barracuda Cloud. A single search query will target all these individual archives, then merge the results and present them back to users as a seamless set of data.

The Barracuda Message Archiver provides comprehensive reports on archiving activity, cost savings, and projected storage growth. These can help you optimize how your infrastructure is used and deployed, as well as support your forward planning.

Security features built into the Message Archiver appliance include tamper-resistant storage and a hardened OS. All data is scanned for viruses, spyware, and malware before being archived. Customer data in the Barracuda Cloud is protected using AES 256-bit encryption, with geographically distributed data centers and multiple data copies providing redundancy. SMTP journaling is secured using TLS encryption and public key cryptology (RSA 1024), and remote connections to the Cloud Archiving Service use HTTPS or Secure FTP.

Available as an option, Barracuda PST Enterprise provides administrators with the ability to discover PST files wherever they exist. This highly automated solution identifies the owner for these files, and then eliminates each one, either by migrating the contents back into Exchange or Office 365, or by archiving messages into the Message Archiver or Cloud Archiving Service. Data is processed selectively, with unwanted or obsolete messages automatically deleted. Find out more about PST Enterprise