=> On Wed, 28 Aug 2002 10:50:27 -0700, Luke Dahl <ldahl AT JPL.NASA DOT GOV> 
said:

> We are backing up an IMAP mail server which creates a new file for
> every new mail message received.

> The large number of files (new messages) created is increasing our
> database size at an alarming rate.


Because 80-to-90 percent of most e-mail is "garbage", my money is on
establishing and enforcing disk space quotas, after educating your users
how they can intelligently manage their e-mail.  Until you hold people
accountable for the resources they consume, you're going to have to
purchase more and more disk, and spend more and more on administering
your computer resources.

To accomplish this goal, you first need to educate everyone that they
would never handle their mountains of "snail mail" this way, by purchasing
more mailboxes, file folders, and file cabinets.

Establish guidelines about appropriate use of e-mail and computer resources,
and then educate your users about good record retention policies:

(1) Business correspondence to you, informing you of "business policy or
decisions", should be retained as evidence of the business process, unless
it is a form of general administrative notice.

(2) Business correspondence from you, related to "business policy or
decisions",
should be saved as evidence of the organization's business process.

(3) Non-business correspondence (i.e., personal mail) can usually
be deleted almost immediately, unless it is some kind of notice
about a future event (meeting notice, luncheon notice, celebration notice)
- which can then be deleted after the date of the event.




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