Large Attachments Without the Email Woes

The Need for a Better Way to
Send Files and Attachments




an Osterman Research white paper sponsored by

Osterman Research, Inc. . P.O. Box 1058 . Black Diamond, Washington 98010-1058 Phone: +1 253 630 5839 . Fax: +1 866 842 3274 . info@ostermanresearch.com . www.ostermanresearch.com The Need for a Better Way to Send Files and Attachments
Introduction Over the past ten years, email has become the most important communications tool used in business. It is the primary communications medium for both external and internal communications - significantly more important than the telephone - and the one that users can least afford to Email was be without. originally designed to send However, the popularity and pervasiveness of email has short, text-based messages. While created a very serious problem for organizations of all sizes: that is still its email was originally designed to send short, text-based basic purpose, messages. While that is still its basic purpose, email has also email has also assumed the role of being the primary data and file assumed the role transport system for most enterprises. As the sophistication of being the and size of the attachments carried in email have grown, primary data the number of problems for IT administrators and users alike and file transport have also grown. For example, large attachments sent system for most through email can dramatically reduce the performance of enterprises. messaging servers and can cause them to crash in some cases. Large attachments drive up storage costs and can require expensive upgrades to network bandwidth. The response from most IT departments has been to implement quotas on the size of mailboxes and/or limitations on the size of the attachments that can be sent through email. However, with increasing attachment sizes and size limits comes the burden on users to spend more time managing their mailbox to stay within the limitations imposed by IT. In fact, some users try to circumvent IT-imposed limits through the use of personal Webmail accounts and other means. The better solution to this escalating problem is a paradigm shift with regard to email. Instead of treating ad hoc file transfer as just another function of the email system, it should instead be regarded as a core business process. Using solutions already available in the market, file transfer can be a parallel capability to email so that business users can send files more efficiently and so that IT does not have to worry about overburdening the email infrastructure.
© 2005 Osterman Research, Inc. Page 1 The Need for a Better Way to Send Files and Attachments
The Problem with Email for File Delivery The ease with which email can be used to send attachments makes it the most convenient file transfer mechanism available to business users today. Whereas several years ago most email users sent basic spreadsheets and presentations via email, today they are sending bigger versions of these files, as well as applications, databases, closing documents, engineering drawings, graphics, creative content, faxes and other large files. While sending files through email is very convenient, email systems were never designed to handle these attachments efficiently, resulting in degraded email server performance, slower message delivery times and other problems. Because as much as 80% of email traffic can be generated through While sending attachments, solving the attachment problem is becoming files through increasingly critical for IT administrators and users. email is very convenient, One solution that has become common practice in most email systems email environments is to put a limit on the size of file were never attachments and a quota on mailbox size. For example, in designed to such an environment if the design office of a manufacturing handle these company wants to send a 50MB design update to the attachments overseas production operation, the email system cannot be efficiently, used to send the file. Similarly, for users who send smaller resulting in degraded email attachments via email, there is the periodic pain of having server to sort through the mailbox and determine what can be performance, safely deleted because of the IT-imposed mailbox qu... [download for more]