The Complete Guide to Eradicating PST Files

Users of Microsoft Outlook have accumulated PST (or Personal Storage Table) files since 1997. PSTs are great for users because these files are totally under their control, but they pose a real compliance risk for companies. Data stored in PSTs are hidden and not available to eDiscovery operations. Although PSTs can be protected by passwords, the passwords are easily cracked and the files can then be loaded into any Outlook client. This book provides an overview of why PSTs are so popular, the issues that this popularity creates for companies and email administrators, and the process that can be used to locate, fix (remove duplicate and corrupt information), and migrate PST data to Office 365, Microsoft's cloud-based Office service. Once in Office 365, the data is indexed, searchable, and available to compliance features such as in-place or litigation holds. The process explained is reasonably generic and could be applied to any PST eradication project and practical examples of how to run a project are provided using QUADROtech's FlightDeck technology.