Discovery Attender from Sherpa Software is an e-Discovery tool designed to automate the search and collection of electronically stored information (ESI) in a cost-effective, efficient and reproducible manner. Although it may seem like Discovery Attender is used primarily for e-Discovery searches on PST data, the application is actually deployed by numerous customers performing a wide variety of tasks. The extensive feature set is complimented by the ability to search diverse types of data. Customers also like to share other relevant uses for Discovery Attender. One of these customers even compared Discovery Attender‟s multi-purpose functionality to that of a Swiss Army Knife! Throughout the rest of this paper, we will focus on what makes Discovery Attender such a flexible, robust tool and why no IT administrator should be without it.

1. November 2012
The Sherpa Approach: Discovery Attender - The Swiss
Army Knife in Your Information Management Toolbox
Discovery Attender from Sherpa Software is an e-Discovery tool designed to automate the
search and collection of electronically stored information (ESI) in a cost-effective, efficient
and reproducible manner. Although it may seem like Discovery Attender is used primarily
for e-Discovery searches on PST data, the application is actually deployed by numerous
customers performing a wide variety of tasks. The extensive feature set is complimented
by the ability to search diverse types of data. Customers also like to share other relevant
uses for Discovery Attender. One of these customers even compared Discovery Attender‟s
multi-purpose functionality to that of a Swiss Army Knife! Throughout the rest of this paper,
we will focus on what makes Discovery Attender such a flexible, robust tool and why no IT
administrator should be without it.
The Importance Electronically stored information continues to grow at an incredible rate. As prefaced in the
Sherpa Approach paper “Saving Time and Money with the Right Data Analysis Tool,” being
of Searching a able to analyze and understand this ever-increasing amount of data is extremely critical, not
Variety of Data only for Information Technology professionals but also for Legal and Compliance
Stores professionals. Still, one of the biggest challenges revolves around how and where this ESI
is organized.
Often, to comply with corporate standards, maintain legacy systems, or even for the sake of
convenience, IT administrators find themselves storing essential ESI across a wide variety
of data stores throughout their corporate infrastructure. Although this may make sense
from a technical viewpoint, dispersing critical data is a huge cause for concern when this
data needs to be accessed or searched for compliance or litigation purposes. But, it is not
just existing data that needs to be accommodated. New options such as cloud-based (e.g.
Office 365) and popular communication software (e.g. Exchange 2010 and 2013) continue
to be adopted. Making sure that all information is accessible, efficiently stored and easily
discoverable is currently a primary concern for organizations, yet the task becomes more
difficult with the proliferation of data in every passing year. With this kind of complexity, very
few software products can handle the multitude of data stores that exist across a
company‟s network. Discovery Attender, Sherpa Software‟s e-Discovery tool, just happens
to be one of these extremely versatile tools.
The types of data that Discovery Attender can access and search include:
 PST files (aka Outlook Personal Folders)
 Microsoft Exchange: Live Mailboxes, Online Archives, Public Folders
 Office 365 (via Exchange Web Services)
 Standard files stored on servers, network shares, and local drives
 SharePoint files
 NSF Files: Lotus Notes Domino email stores
 Archives
 EML/MSG files
 IMAP email (e.g. Gmail, Yahoo, etc…)
 Legacy Exchange servers
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2. Cloud and Whether it‟s cloud based solutions or new versions of Microsoft Exchange, many users
have encountered price, functionality or flexibility limitations. A key capability of Discovery
Exchange 2010 Attender is to make accessing and searching these solutions easy and cost effective.
Limitations
A good example of how Discovery Attender overcomes restrictions appears when
searching cloud based email and attachments for litigation or compliance purposes. Many
cloud based providers charge exorbitant fees to search and extract data for e-Discovery
purposes. In addition, these services are often not covered under basic contracts, nor do all
providers make their methodology, exceptions, process or execution clear to end-users.
Instead of paying these charges and dealing with the time consuming bureaucracy, Sherpa
Software customers extol the virtues of using Discovery Attender to search and extract
cloud based data. The most popular methods of doing so include using the IMAP options
to export or by searching directly in hosted Office 365 via the built-in Exchange Web
Services (EWS) functionality. This ends up costing a fraction of what the providers would
charge, potentially saving users thousands of dollars. In addition to the cost savings, using
Discovery Attender can reduce the time it takes to complete a search. The search is made
more efficient by incorporating all related queries into one streamlined process. This
methodology can be used for any IMAP connected email store (e.g. Google, Yahoo, etc.) or
for Office 365 mailbox or online archives.
When it comes to Exchange 2010, we‟ve seen the addition of some significant new
discovery features. However, the e-Discovery features within Exchange still leave a lot to
be desired. One of its biggest limitations is that it is restricted to searching its own
Exchange 2010 data stores. Thus, anything stored outside of Exchange is non-searchable.
This includes older versions of Exchange, file stores, SharePoint, PST files, local hard
drives, and much more. Don‟t forget that Exchange 2010 searching is only as good as its
indexes. If certain file types are not parsed by the iFilters, they will not be included in the
search. Luckily, Discovery Attender does not have these restrictions. Discovery Attender
will deploy a single set of search criteria across multiple types of ESI making searching far
easier and more effective.
Discovery Attender
by the Numbers: 75%
of the time, Discovery
Attender customers
use the product to
search more than 1
data store.
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3. Other Uses of Discovery Attender‟s flexibility and versatility doesn‟t stop at handling discovery requests
and searching multiple types of data stores. Our customers find it a very useful tool for
Discovery other, off-brand system administration, legal and compliance needs. Some of these
Attender include:
• Eliminating PCI/PII data: This use is so popular it should be considered a standard
task. A variety of regulations in a number of industries forbid the clear test (i.e. unmasked)
storage of „Personally Indefinable Information‟ and „Payment Card Industry‟ data.
Discovery Attender is deployed to find email, attachments, and files which contain the
rogue information such as social security and credit card numbers. It does so by
recognizing identification patterns using the Regular Expression feature. Once found, these
items are moved out of the general data stores into secure repositories using the built-in
Advanced Actions.
• Identifying inappropriate data: Mailboxes or file stores often contain data which is
inconsistent with company policy. This can range from dirty words to media files. Once
items are found using keyword, size or file type criteria, the Advanced Actions are once
again deployed to clean up the data repositories and bring them back into policy
compliance.
“Discovery Attender • Removing confidential documents: Occasionally proprietary or confidential information
for Exchange is an escapes into general, non-classified data stores. Discovery Attender comes to the rescue
by finding the offending documents via file names or keywords. These files are then
absolutely essential deleted with extreme prejudice thus ensuring no valuable data is able to break away from
piece of our e- secure networks.
Discovery toolkit. We
use it frequently for • Collecting product history: Some manufacturing companies use Discovery Attender to
track correspondence referencing specific products or parts (via patent numbers or part
culling, listing, numbers) so they can keep a complete record for reference and backup purposes.
analyzing, moving,
renaming…you- • Finding lost items: Some IT administrators are called upon to locate files or email
name-it. DAE is messages that have gone astray. A surprising number of techs have reported turning to
really the ‘Swiss Discovery Attender to help them find and restore lost digital items to their proper owners.
Army knife’ in our • Locating viruses: One of the more unexpected uses reported to our support team is
toolbox.” using Discovery Attender to supplement anti-virus software. Definitely an off brand
exercise, but several admins have found the tool very helpful in tracking specific infected
-Diane Pittman, files in static email stores and network shares that conventional virus scans may have
missed.
Babst, Calland,
Clements & • Collecting data after separation: Often company policy dictates that all data from
Zomnir, P.C. employees leaving a company must be collected and stored for a defined period of time.
Because Discovery Attender can scan many data stores at once (Exchange, file shares,
desktops, etc.) it is the ideal tool for performing this type of collection. As an added bonus,
the deduplication features helps reduce the amount of data which needs to be kept.
• Deleting clutter: Many organizations find themselves faced with hordes of unneeded
files which pollute mail servers and file shares alike. Spring cleaning comes around when
admins break out Discovery Attender to find and remove items that muddle the data
stores. Old newsletters, cross-company emails, viral media files and all those inspirational
but large power points are eradicated.
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4. Conclusion Electronically stored information continues to grow at an alarming rate. Being able to
analyze and understand this ever-increasing amount of data is critical to every organization
regardless of size or industry. To be prepared, organizations must proactively build and
maintain a discovery tool kit. Discovery Attender‟s ability to search a wide variety of data
stores, along with the multitude of other relevant uses discussed in this paper, make it the
Swiss Army Knife in your e-Discovery and email management toolbox. It is a must-have for
IT administrators and Legal personnel alike. For more information on what Discovery
Attender has to offer, please visit www.sherpasoftware.com or contact us at
information@sherpasoftware.com.
About Sherpa For over 10 years Sherpa Software has provided IT Professionals with award-winning
Software information management software specifically designed to address email management,
archiving, e-discovery, PST management and compliance requirements for Lotus Notes
and Microsoft Exchange environments. Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Sherpa‟s
solutions are practical, reliable and affordable and have been installed at thousands of
organizations worldwide. Their products offer flexible architectures that streamline
administrative processes without requiring any additional hardware or add-on components.
Sherpa Software is an IBM Premier Business Partner and a Microsoft Certified Partner.
For more information about Sherpa Software, visit www.sherpasoftware.com.
456 Washington Avenue
Bridgeville, PA 15017
www.SherpaSoftware.com
1.800.255.5155
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5. About the Author Ned joined the Sherpa Software team in November 2010. As the Sales & Marketing
Associate, Ned is responsible for marketing, sales, channel and technical support
aspects. He oversees all day-to-day tasks concerning software support renewals for the
channel sales team while also acting as a liaison between the Channel and Marketing
Departments. With the marketing team, Ned‟s main focus is content creation. Each
month, he writes numerous blog posts, company positioning pieces and his fan favorite
“Off the Topic” articles, which are sent to almost 30,000 newsletter subscribers. As for
Ned‟s technical support responsibilities, you can find Ned chatting with and helping
customers via our “Live Chat” function. Overall, Ned accomplishes a wide range of
business-critical functions for the team at Sherpa Software.
Ned graduated from Duquesne University in 2010, where he received a Bachelor‟s of Science in Business
Administration, specializing in Entrepreneurship and new business creation with a minor in Spanish.
Ned is an avid sports enthusiast. In his time at Duquesne, he was heavily involved with the Men‟s Club Volleyball
Team, not only as an active team member and player but also as President and Captain. Ned still enjoys playing in
competitive volleyball tournaments during his summers, along with other activities like basketball, hockey, boxing, and
running. He also loves other languages, cultures and its people – particularly Spanish. Ned spent time in Spain where
he was immersed in the language and culture while also taking classes at the Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca
(Salamanca, Spain). He hopes to visit Spain again in the future.
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