Close
Enter your
text here

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Our First Birthday! eDiscovery Daily is One Year Old Today!
 

Break out the birthday cake and the noisemakers!  eDiscovery Daily is now a year old!  One year ago today, we launched this blog with the ambitious goal of providing eDiscovery news and analysis every business day.  And, we haven’t missed a day yet!  Knock on wood!

Since we last reported, during our “sixmonthiversary”, we’ve almost doubled viewership (again!) since those first six months, and have increased our subscriber base over 2 1/2 times over that span!  Clearly, there is no shortage of topics to write about regarding eDiscovery and we appreciate your continued interest and support!

We also want to thank the blogs and publications that have linked to our posts and raised our public awareness, including Pinhawk, Litigation Support Blog.com, The Electronic Discovery Reading Room, Litigation Support Technology & News, eDiscovery News, InfoGovernance Engagement Area, Ride the Lightning, ABA Journal, ABC's of E-Discovery, Above the Law, EDD: Issues, Law, and Solutions, Law.com and any other publication that has picked up at least one of our posts for reference (sorry if I missed any!).

Finally, a quick “thanks” to all who contributed to the blog in the past year, including Jane Gennarelli, Jason Krause and Brad Jenkins (my boss, got to thank him, right?), as well as Melissa Rudy for assisting with several of the posts.

For those of you who have not been following eDiscovery Daily all year (which is most of you), here are some topics and posts you may have missed.  Feel free to check them out!

Case Law:

eDiscovery Daily has published 50 posts related to eDiscovery case decisions and activities over the past year!  Victor Stanley v. Creative Pipe, commonly referred to as the “Victor Stanley” case was followed throughout the year, including our very first post, as well as here, here and here.  More recently, the eDiscovery malpractice case involving McDermott, Will & Emery has captured considerable interest, with recent posts here, here and yesterday’s post here.

Also among the case law posts is Crispin v. Christian Audigier Inc., which seems to reflect growing interest in discoverability of social media data, as this post was the most viewed post of the year on our blog!

Project Management:

Project management in eDiscovery is a popular topic and Jane Gennarelli provided a couple of series of posts to address best practices in this very important area.  The eDiscovery Project Management series was published over the October, November and December months of 2010, while the Managing an eDiscovery Contract Review Team series ran over January, February and into March.

Thought Leaders:

eDiscovery Daily was able to sit down with numerous industry thought leaders, including George Socha, Craig Ball, Tom O’Connor, Tom Gelbmann, Jack Halprin, Deidre Paknad, Jeffrey Brandt, Alon Israely, Jim McGann and Christine Musil to get their “takes” on the state of the industry and where it’s headed.  Thanks to all of those individuals who agreed to speak with us this past year!  We will continue to bring you more perspectives throughout the industry in the coming year.

Search Best Practices:

There were several posts on search best practices, including don’t get “wild” with wildcards, these posts on how to look for misspellings, a case study for using term lists, these posts on handling exception files and this post on the benefits of proximity searching.  We also talked about the “STARR” approach for defensible searching and published this three part series on best practices for sampling and revising searches.

Cloud Computing:

As cloud computing has become a major organizational driving force (overall and as part of eDiscovery), we have addressed several topics related to it, including the importance to be able to load your own data, benefits of software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions for eDiscovery, the truth about security of SaaS and cloud-based systems, the Forrester and Gartner forecasts for tremendous growth in cloud computing, and even Craig Ball’s thoughts on the benefits of cloud computing for eDiscovery.

And many more posts over the past year on various other topics that are too numerous to mention…

Finally, it’s important to mention that we have yet to archive any old posts, so every post we have ever published is still currently available on this site! (I can see the Information Governance buffs cringing at that statement!)  I believe that we are in the process of building an impressive knowledge base of information spanning all sorts of eDiscovery topics as well as the entire EDRM life cycle.  If there’s an eDiscovery topic you wish to research, chances are that it’s been discussed here at some point.  So, feel free to make eDiscovery Daily one of your first stops for your eDiscovery information needs!

So, what do you think? Do you have any topics that you would like to see covered in more depth? Please share any comments you might have or if you'd like to know more about a particular topic.

eDiscovery Trends: To Get the Latest Trends, Go Virtual
 

Many of you have likely attended at least one LegalTech trade show at some point.  LegalTech New York (LTNY) happens every year in the late January/early February time frame and there is also a LegalTech West Coast (LTWC) show later in the year (this year it was in mid-May).  LTNY and LTWC usually have several good sessions, as well as the latest product and service offerings from exhibitors.  But, what if you can’t make it to one of these shows?

For those who can’t travel, but still wish to stay up to date on the latest trends, American Lawyer Media (ALM) has begun offering Virtual LegalTech (VLT) sessions quarterly.  This is the second full year that these sessions have been available and the sessions for this quarter are being held tomorrow (many of which are CLE eligible, at least in certain jurisdictions).  These online sessions are free to attend – you simply have to provide information to obtain a login ID and password.

VLT is set up just like an actual trade show.  There’s a “campus” with two exhibit halls, a CLE Center auditorium, a lounge and a resource room.  Copies of slides for presentations are usually available a short time after the presentation is conducted in the resource room.  You can even check out vendor “booths” in the virtual exhibit halls!

For tomorrow’s “show”, there are several sessions related to eDiscovery concepts, including:

9:00 am – 10:00 am ET:

Recover Costs, Improve Profits & Reduce Risk: Cost Recovery for eDiscovery Content

Description: Law firms, like all businesses, are constantly looking for ways to reduce costs and improve profits. Traditional cost recovery focuses on tracking, managing and assigning costs associated with activities such as scanning, faxing, printing, and e-mailing. To make documents eDiscoverable at point of capture, documents should be tagged with metadata such as filename, matter, client and billing code information; easing the burden on staff and lawyers, so more time can be spent strategizing the case and less time at the device handling administrative tasks. This session will explore various practices for integrating eDiscovery into traditional cost recovery tactics. Industry experts will also discuss tips and tricks to help profits soar while also reducing risk of data loss.

Speakers are: Chris Wyszkowski – Nuance Communications; Thomas Goldman, JD – Author of Technology in the Law Office, Second Edition

11:00 am – 12:00 pm ET:

Attack of the Clouds: Virtual Privacy & Online Security

Description: Look at cloud computing through the lens of eDiscovery and its easy to become confused as to whether the cloud is a great equalizer; allowing firms of all sizes to spend less time and money on the mechanics of eDiscovery, or the refuge of the naïve for whom its only a matter of time until their miracle solution falls flat. The cloud offers great cost savings and convenience to law practitioners, but there are very real concerns about cloud privacy and security.

Our expert panel will share a unique legal and technical perspective on privacy and security in the cloud, looking at case law regarding the liability of cloud providers and how it impacts the health of the cloud industry. This informative discussion will span legal and cybersecurity issues with the cloud, giving you a clear view of the risks and rewards involved with this exciting new technology.

Speakers are: Caitlyn Murphy, Esq. – Senior Product Manager, AccessData Group; Joshua Gilliland – Attorney and Author of the Bow Tie Law Blog; Jeffrey Dye – CISSP, Network Defense and Digital Forensics, General Dynamics

12:00 pm – 1:00 pm ET:

Unbundling Litigation: Selecting and Using E-Discovery Counsel

Description: There was a time when corporations expected litigation counsel to handle all aspects of litigation, including discovery.  However, as e-discovery becomes more complex and mistakes are increasingly common, there is a trend toward unbundling litigation and selecting a separate e-discovery counsel.  E-discovery counsel is often a separate law firm that specializes in e-discovery issues and can do the work better, faster and cheaper than general litigation lawyers.  This panel will discuss the pros and cons of using e-discovery counsel in complex litigation.  We will also discuss best practices for selecting and integrating e-discovery counsel into the litigation process.

Speakers are: Chris Dale – Moderator and Author of the eDisclosure Information Project (UK); Darryl Shetterly – Partner, LeClair Ryan, LLC; William Belt – Partner and Team Leader, Discovery Solutions Practice, LeClair Ryan LLC; Heather Bryden – Assistant General Counsel. e-Discovery Manager, Capitol One Bank

2:00 pm – 3:00 pm ET:

Information Security – A Systematic Approach to Protecting Your Organization’s Data During the eDiscovery Process

Description: Information security is a high priority concern for both corporations and law firms in the eDiscovery process. The challenge is translating this concern into practice. Failing to take special care to ensure security can expose your company or client’s most critical information and breaches the ethical standards of  client-lawyer confidentiality. A centrally managed, systematic approach based upon a formal management system is the best way to ensure the highest level of information security.

In this session, we will offer an overview of approaches that will allow lawyers to ethically meet their  professional obligations related to information security best practices, standards and processes, such as:

  • Why a process driven approach to information security is needed?
  • Who should be responsible for information security in the eDiscovery process?
  • What are the hallmarks of good information security?
  • How to evaluate information security practices in your eDiscovery partner or vendor?

Speakers are: Doug Stewart – EnCE, Director of Technology, Daegis; Andy Teichholz, Esq. – Senior eDiscovery Consultant, Daegis; Mark Michels – Former eDiscovery and Litigation Counsel, Cisco; Aaron Crews – eDiscovery Counsel, Littler Mendelson

3:00 pm – 4:00 pm ET:

Judge's Panel: Leveraging Technology to Reduce the Challenges of Discovery

Description: What are the most important facts that will allow you to leverage the technology created to assist attorneys with litigation and discovery? This group of distinguished judges will spotlight decisive concerns, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure reform and what can be done to alleviate the responsibility and obligation that is essential to compliant discovery practice. The most technologically advanced methods to effectively approach the planning and managing of litigation preparation to meet key requirements will be discussed. This session is a “must attend” for those interested is lessening the burden of discovery.

Speakers are: Hon. Frank Maas – Magistrate Judge, Southern District of New York; Hon. Patty Shwartz – Magistrate Judge, District of Newark, NJ and Adjunct Professor of Law, Fordham University Law School; Hon. Ron Hedges – Former Magistrate Judge

4:00 pm – 5:00 pm ET:

Cross-Border Discovery and Investigations – Developing a Strategic Response Plan

Description: Companies operating in the global economy face increasing scrutiny from regulators in the US and Europe, with enhanced risk of related cross-border litigation and discovery. Join Howard Sklar, Senior Counsel of Recommind and Denise Backhouse, Associate, eData Practice, Morgan Lewis, as they address the data management issues in developing a strategic, cost-effective plan for responding to international discovery and investigations:

  • Data protection issues in European/US investigations and discovery:  the legal framework and recent developments
  • Preparing for investigations and discovery: creating a response plan; establishing a team; effective communication and privilege protection
  • Best practices for handling data in international matters

Speakers are: Denise E. Backhouse – Associate, eData Practice Morgan Lewis; Howard Sklar – Senior Counsel Recommind, Inc.

To “attend” any of these sessions or learn more about Virtual Legal Tech, go to Virtual Legal Tech Show.

So, what do you think?  Do you attend virtual seminars?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

eDiscovery Trends: NY Times Says US Government Has Its Head in the Clouds
 

No, this isn’t a post bashing our government – you can find plenty of articles on the web for that!  😉

As noted a few months ago, Forrester and Gartner have predicted big growth for the cloud computing industry, with Forrester predicting nearly a six-fold growth in nine years.  Many organizations are finding that cloud computing solutions, including Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions for using applications over the web, are saving those organizations significant costs over the costs of having to provide their own software, hardware and infrastructure.  In eDiscovery, these SaaS solutions support every phase of the EDRM life cycle, from Identification to Presentation.

Earlier this week, the New York Times published an article entitled Tight Budget? Look to the ‘Cloud’, written by Vivek Kundra, the Obama administration’s chief information officer from 2009 until earlier this month.  Mr. Kundra noted that there were “vast inefficiencies” in the $80 billion federal IT budget when he took office, and that the Defense Department spent $850 million over ten years on one personnel system alone.

In response, Kundra and his staff instituted a “Cloud First” policy, which advocates the adoption of cloud computing solutions by government agencies.  It even went as far as to mandate the transition of at least three projects for every agency to the cloud by next summer.  As a result, some agencies, such as the General Services Administration, have embraced cloud computing and cut IT costs on some systems by over 50 percent.

Some agencies, like the State Department, have balked at the transition to the cloud, citing security concerns.  However, Kundra notes that “cloud computing is often far more secure than traditional computing, because companies…can attract and retain cyber-security personnel of a higher quality than many governmental agencies”.  Here is an example of the security associated with cloud based solutions, using the facility used by CloudNineDiscovery (formerly Trial Solutions).  As you will see, there are numerous mechanisms to secure sensitive client data.

Kundra notes that a shift to cloud-based services in health care alone to achieve a 1 percent productivity increase over ten years would result in a $300 billion savings.  Noting significant growth in cloud computing in Japan and India, he advocates the creation of a global Cloud First policy to enable nations to determine how the flow of information internationally should be handled, leading to global efficiencies.

So, what do you think? Do you use any cloud based solutions in managing your discovery needs?  Please share any comments you might have or if you'd like to know more about a particular topic.

Full disclosure: I work for CloudNine Discovery (formerly Trial Solutions), which provides SaaS-based eDiscovery review applications FirstPass® (for first pass review) and OnDemand® (for linear review and production).  Our clients’ data is hosted in a secured Tier 4 Data Center in Houston, Texas.

Have a Happy Labor Day!

eDiscovery Trends: A Site Designed to Facilitate Meet and Confer Conferences
 

The past two days, we discussed the basics of the Rule 26(f) “meet and confer” conference and details regarding the topics to discuss during that conference.  Hopefully, you found that review informative.

Now, as noted in a recent Law Technology News article by Sean Doherty, there’s a web application to facilitate the process to prepare for and conduct the Rule 26(f) conference.

MeetandConfer.com, provided by 26F LLC, was created to help attorneys prepare for court mandated “meet and confer” meetings.  The application is designed for law firms and corporate clients to help them determine the content, scope, and extent of ESI associated with the case.  There are four modules to coordinate the process, as follows:

  • Manage Enterprise Information: Enables users to map out organizational information, allowing all parties to understand where potentially relevant ESI is located, policies and practices associated with the ESI, and who is responsible for the ESI.  This module also enables various aspects of the organization to be documented, including backup policies and disaster recovery plans.
  • Matter Scoping: Enables users to track the various matters, and, for each matter, it enables users to track custodians and generate surveys to gather information about the locations of potentially responsive ESI.
  • Meet and Confer: Allows attorneys to define essential ESI needs for both parties while projecting a budget to identify, collect and process the data.  This module also provides a mechanism for computer-aided video conferencing (which can be facilitated by an independent mediator) to actually conduct the conference.
  • System Administration: Supports the creation of clients and users and establish rights for each user group.

Sean’s article mentioned above goes into more detail into each module, reflecting his “hands on” experience in “test driving” the application.  MeetandConfer.com is offering a free one month trial to “qualified” users (i.e., attorneys and judges), with the monthly rate of $149 per user to be billed after the free trial.

So, what do you think? Would an application like this make it easier to fully prepare for “meet and confer” conferences? Would you consider using such an application?  Please share any comments you might have or if you'd like to know more about a particular topic.

eDiscovery Trends: Cloud Covered by Ball
 

What is the cloud, why is it becoming so popular and why is it important to eDiscovery? These are the questions being addressed—and very ably answered—in the recent article Cloud Cover (via Law Technology News) by computer forensics and eDiscovery expert Craig Ball, a previous thought leader interviewee on this blog.

Ball believes that the fears about cloud data security are easily dismissed when considering that “neither local storage nor on-premises data centers have proved immune to failure and breach”. And as far as the cloud's importance to the law and to eDiscovery, he says, "the cloud is re-inventing electronic data discovery in marvelous new ways while most lawyers are still grappling with the old."

What kinds of marvelous new ways, and what do they mean for the future of eDiscovery?

What is the Cloud?

First we have to understand just what the cloud is.  The cloud is more than just the Internet, although it's that, too. In fact, what we call "the cloud" is made up of three on-demand services:

  • Software as a Service (SaaS) covers web-based software that performs tasks you once carried out on your computer's own hard drive, without requiring you to perform your own backups or updates. If you check your email virtually on Hotmail or Gmail or run a Google calendar, you're using SaaS.
  • Platform as a Service (PaaS) happens when companies or individuals rent virtual machines (VMs) to test software applications or to run processes that take up too much hard drive space to run on real machines.
  • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) encompasses the use and configuration of virtual machines or hard drive space in whatever manner you need to store, sort, or operate your electronic information.

These three models combine to make up the cloud, a virtual space where electronic storage and processing is faster, easier and more affordable.

How the Cloud Will Change eDiscovery

One reason that processing is faster is through distributed processing, which Ball calls “going wide”.  Here’s his analogy:

“Remember that scene in The Matrix where Neo and Trinity arm themselves from gun racks that appear out of nowhere? That's what it's like to go wide in the cloud. Cloud computing makes it possible to conjure up hundreds of virtual machines and make short work of complex computing tasks. Need a supercomputer-like array of VMs for a day? No problem. When the grunt work's done, those VMs pop like soap bubbles, and usage fees cease. There's no capital expenditure, no amortization, no idle capacity. Want to try the latest concept search tool? There's nothing to buy! Just throw the tool up on a VM and point it at the data.”

Because the cloud is entirely virtual, operating on servers whose locations are unknown and mostly irrelevant, it throws the rules for eDiscovery right out the metaphorical window.

Ball also believes that everything changes once discoverable information goes into the cloud. "Bringing ESI beneath one big tent narrows the gap between retention policy and practice and fosters compatible forms of ESI across web-enabled applications".

"Moving ESI to the cloud," Ball adds, "also spells an end to computer forensics." Where there are no hard drives, there can be no artifacts of deleted information—so, deleted really means deleted.

What's more, “[c]loud computing makes collection unnecessary”. Where discovery requires that information be collected to guarantee its preservation, putting a hold on ESI located in the cloud will safely keep any users from destroying it. And because cloud computing allows for faster processing than can be accomplished on a regular hard drive, the search for discovery documents will move to where they're located, in the cloud. Not only will this approach be easier, it will also save money.

Ball concludes his analysis with the statement, "That e-discovery will live primarily in the cloud isn't a question of whether but when."

So, what do you think? Is cloud computing the future of eDiscovery? Is that future already here? Please share any comments you might have or if you'd like to know more about a particular topic.

eDiscovery Trends: An Insufficient Password Will Thwart Even The Most Secure Site
 

Several months ago, we talked about how most litigators have come to accept that Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) systems are secure.  For example, at Trial Solutions, the servers hosting data for our OnDemand® and FirstPass® (powered by Venio FPR™) platforms are housed in a Tier 4 data center in Houston (which is where our headquarters is).  The security at this data center is military grade: 24 x 7 x 365 onsite security guards, video surveillance, biometric and card key security required just to get into the building.  Not to mention a building that features concrete bollards, steel lined walls, bulletproof glass, and barbed wire fencing.

Pretty secure, huh?  Hacking into a system like this would be very difficult, wouldn’t you think?  I’ll bet that the CIA, PBS and Sony had secure systems as well; however, they were recently “hacked” by the hacker group LulzSec.  According to a recent study by the Ponemon Institute (linked to here via the Ride the Lightning blog), the chance of any business being hacked in the next 12 months is a “statistical certainty”.

No matter how secure a system is, whether it’s local to your office or stored in the “cloud”, an insufficient password that can be easily guessed can allow hackers to get in and steal your data.  Some dos and don’ts:

Dos:

  • If you need to write passwords down, write them down without the corresponding user IDs and keep the passwords with important documents like your passport, social security card and other important documents you’re unlikely to lose.  Or, better yet, use a password management application that encrypts and stores all of your passwords.
  • Mnemonics make great passwords.  For example, “I work for Trial Solutions in Houston, Texas” could become a password like “iw4tsiht”. (by the way, that’s not a password for any of my accounts, so don’t even try)  😉
  • Change passwords every few months.  Some systems require this anyway.

Don’ts:

  • Don’t use the same password for multiple accounts, especially if they have sensitive data such as bank account or credit card information.
  • Don’t email passwords to yourself – if someone is able to hack into your email, then they have access to those accounts as well.
  • Personal information may be easy to remember, but it can also be easily guessed, so avoid using things like your kids’ names, birthday or other information that can be guessed by someone who knows you.
  • Avoid logging into sensitive accounts when using public Wi-Fi as it is much easier for hackers to tap into what you’re doing in those environments.  If you’re thinking of checking your bank balance while having a latte at Starbucks, don’t.

So, what do you think?  Are you guilty of any of the “don’ts” listed above?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Full disclosure: I work for Trial Solutions, which provides SaaS-based eDiscovery review applications FirstPass® (for first pass review) and OnDemand® (for linear review and production).  Our clients’ data is hosted in a secured, SAS 70 Type II certified Tier 4 Data Center in Houston, Texas.

eDiscovery Trends: The Best SaaS Providers are Certifiable
 

The increasing popularity of cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions is becoming well documented, with this very blog noting Forrester and Gartner predictions of tremendous growth in cloud computing over the next several years.  We’ve also noted the importance of knowing where your data is stored, as many online poker players learned the hard way when the recent US government crackdown of several gambling sites left them without a way to recover their funds.

If only there were some sort of certification, administered by an impartial third party, to ensure that your SaaS provider has implemented policies and processes that keep your information secure, stable and safe.  There is such a certification.

SAS 70 (the Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70) defines the standards an auditor must employ in order to assess the contracted internal controls of a service provider. Service providers, such as insurance claims processors, credit processing companies and, especially pertinent to eDiscovery, hosted data centers, are evaluated by these standards. The SAS 70 was developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) as a simplification of a set of criteria for auditing standards originally defined in 1988.  Standards such as SAS 70 became critical in the wake of the Sarbanes-Oxley, which created significant legal penalties for publicly traded companies who lacked sufficient control standards for their financial information.

Under SAS 70, auditor reports are classified as either Type I or Type II. In a Type I report, the auditor evaluates the service provider to prevent accounting inconsistencies, errors and misrepresentation. The auditor also evaluates the likelihood that those efforts will produce the desired future results. A Type II report goes a step further.  It includes the same information as that contained in a Type I report; however, the auditor also attempts to determine the effectiveness of agreed-on controls since their implementation. Type II reports also incorporate data compiled during a specific time period, usually a minimum of six months.

SAS 70 reports are either requested by the service provider or a user organization (i.e., clients). The ability for the service provider to provide consistent service auditor's reports builds a client's trust and confidence in the service provider, satisfying potential concerns. A SaaS (2 a’s, as opposed to one for SAS) provider that has received SAS 70 Type II certification has demonstrated to an impartial third party a proven track record of policies and processes to protect its clients’ data.  When it comes to your data, you want a provider that has proven to be certifiable.

So, what do you think?  Is your SaaS provider SAS 70 Type II certified?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Full disclosure: I work for Trial Solutions, which provides SaaS-based eDiscovery review applications FirstPass® (for first pass review) and OnDemand® (for linear review and production).  Our clients’ data is hosted in a secured, SAS 70 Type II certified Tier 4 Data Center in Houston, Texas.

eDiscovery Trends: The Only Prescription is More Cloud
 

A famous “philosopher” once said, “I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell”.  Sorry, I couldn’t resist…that line always makes me laugh.  😉

It seems that many corporations and law firms “got a fever” and “the only prescription is more cloud”.

As we noted earlier this week, Forrester has forecast that the global Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) “cloud” computing market will grow from 40.7 billion dollars in 2011 to more than 241 billion dollars by 2020 – a six-fold increase.  In addition, the Gartner Group has projected that the cloud computing industry will have revenue of 148.8 billion dollars by 2014 – an even faster growth rate than Forrester’s forecast of 118.7 billion dollars for the same year.

So, there are the predictions.  The question is why?

One reason is the continued trend toward decentralization and globalization of organizations today.  In my recent interview with Jeffrey Brandt, Editor of the Pinhawk Law Technology Daily Digest, he noted that a 250 lawyer firm in Ohio was the 83rd largest law firm in the country several years ago, but now that same sized firm might not make it into the AMLAW 250.  Firms are growing and, as technology shrinks the world for many organizations, the barriers to expansion (even globally) are minimized.  Cloud computing technology is one of the ways in which technology shrinks the world today and enables decentralized organizations share applications and data.

And then, there is the economy.

In the past few years, many corporations and law firms have reduced their IT staffs – in some cases, significantly. Also, while the use of technology has continued to increase “by leaps and bounds”, expenditures for training or upgrading skill sets has lagged behind. Cloud computing technology solves this issue because the burden of keeping up with technology advances is shifted from the organization to the service provider.  As a result, many organizations are finding that “the only prescription for their fever” is “more cloud”.

In the coming days, we will discuss other cloud benefits as well as issues to consider and address before making the move to the cloud.

So, what do you think?  Is your organization storing more data in the cloud?  Does your organization have an effective plan in place for getting to the data when litigation strikes?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

As we are off on Monday for the Memorial Day holiday, eDiscoveryDaily would like to thank all veterans and the men and women serving in our armed forces and the sacrifices you make for our country.  Thanks to all of you and your families and have a happy and safe Memorial Day!

eDiscovery Trends: Forecast for More Clouds
 

No, eDiscoveryDaily has not begun providing weather forecasts on our site.  Or stock forecasts.

But, imagine if you could invest in an industry that could nearly sextuple in nine years? (i.e., multiply six-fold).

Well, the cloud computing, or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), industry may be just the industry for you.  According to a Forrester report from last month, the global cloud computing market will grow from 40.7 billion dollars in 2011 to more than 241 billion dollars by 2020.  That’s a 200 billion dollar increase in nine years.  That’s enough to put anybody “on cloud nine”!

The report titled Sizing The Cloud by Stefan Ried (Principal Analyst, Forrester) and Holger Kisker (Sr. Analyst, Forrester), outlines the different market dynamics for three core layers of cloud computing, as follows:

  • Public Cloud: From 25.5 billion dollars to 159.3 billion dollars by 2020;
  • Virtual Private Cloud: From 7.5 billion dollars to 66.4 billion dollars by 2020;
  • Private Cloud: From 7.8 billion dollars to 159.3 billion dollars by 2020.

Public cloud providers include everything from Facebook and Twitter to Amazon.com and Salesforce.com.  As the name implies, a private cloud is where companies implement their own cloud environment to support its own needs.  A virtual private cloud is simply a private cloud located within a public cloud.

Forrester is not the only analyst firm that expects big things for cloud computing.  The Gartner Group projected that the cloud computing industry will have revenue of 148.8 billion dollars by 2014, even higher than Forrester’s forecast of 118.7 billion dollars for the same year.  Clearly, the benefits of the cloud are causing many organizations to consider it as a viable option for storing and managing critical data.

What does that mean from an eDiscovery perspective?  That means a forecast for more clouds.  If your organization doesn’t have a plan in place for managing, identifying, preserving and collecting data from its cloud solutions, things could get stormy!

So, what do you think?  Is your organization storing more data in the cloud?  Does your organization have an effective plan in place for getting to the data when litigation strikes?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

eDiscovery Best Practices: Usefulness of Facebook’s Self Collection Mechanism
 

We’ve written about Facebook a lot on this blog.  Shortly after this blog was launched, we provided information on Facebook’s subpoena policy.  We’ve also talked about the eDiscovery implications associated with the rollout of Facebook’s new email messaging system, dubbed “Facemail”.  And, just last week, we chronicled a case involving Facebook where they were ordered to produce documents instead of just merely providing access to them.  And, we haven’t even mentioned the latest revelations that Facebook may have secretly hired a PR firm to plant negative stories about Google (oops, we just did!).

But perhaps our most popular post regarding Facebook was regarding the self collection mechanism that they rolled out last October, which we found out about via our LegalTech interview with Craig Ball published back in March after our February interview (Craig also wrote an article about the feature in Law Technology News in February).

Now, another article has been written about the usefulness of Facebook’s self collection mechanism (called “Download Your Information”) in the blog E-Discovery Law Alert, entitled How Useful is Facebook's "Download Your Information" Feature in E-Discovery?, written by Patrick V. DiDomenico.

The author of this article conducted a test by downloading his information via the utility, deleting some information from his Facebook profile – “an email message, some wall posts, comments, photos, and even a friend (not a close friend)” – hopefully, he added the friend back.  Then, he downloaded his information again, every day for four days, with no change for the first three days.  On the fourth day, most of the deleted information disappeared from the download, except the email message (which disappeared when he ran the utility one more time).

The conclusion was that the mechanism “does not appear to ‘look back’ and recover deleted information in the user’s account”.  Thoughts:

  • With no change in the download in the first three days, the author notes that “Facebook did not take a fresh snapshot of my account every day – it just re-downloaded the same file three days in a row”.  He doesn’t mention whether he added any content during this time.  It would be interesting to see if that would force a change.
  • I don’t believe that there is any specific documentation from Facebook as to how it handles additions and deletions and how often the snapshot is updated.  If not, it might behoove them to create some, it might save them some subpoena requests.
  • The author notes that “it is inadvisable for lawyers to rely solely on the Download Your Information feature for discovery of an adversary’s Facebook information” as it “gives no assurance that a litigant’s attempt to delete evidence will be revealed”.  On the other hand, it may be still an appropriate mechanism to use for your own discovery to preserve your own information.  Facebook may also store deleted information on backup tapes, so a subpoena could catch your opponent red-handed if you can justify the discovery of those tapes.  Food for thought.

So, what do you think?  Have you had any Facebook discovery requests in your eDiscovery projects?   Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.