HP TRIM 7 Provides Records Management for SharePoint

When HP (site) bought Tower in 2008 the reason they gave for doing so was to extend their reach in the information management market. The recent upgrade of the TRIM document management software to TRIM 7 fulfills that ambition by offering an integrated, full suite of solutions for eDiscovery, compliance, records management and archiving.

In fact with TRIM 7, HP has specifically focused on upgrading the records and archiving elements. In this respect, they have created software that enables organizations transparently manage all of their Microsoft SharePoint Server records in a single environment, regardless of the source of those records.

What this means is that it can now capture Microsoft SharePoint files and even entire SharePoint workspaces. It also comes with full DoD 5015.2 v3 certification, making it particularly attractive across the eDiscovery and compliance markets.

TRIM And SharePoint

That TRIM 7 focuses specifically on integrating its records and archiving abilities with SharePoint is not a surprise.

For those unfamiliar with it, TRIM software is an enterprise document and records management system with the ability to scale across large, distributed environments. It enables users to capture, manage and secure enterprise information, from electronic to physical records and from creation to eventual disposal.

When HP bought Tower and its Total Records Information Management (TRIM) in 2008 one of the features it was buying was TRIM’s SharePoint integration capabilities. Tower’s software was based on Microsoft Technologies and was a Gold Partner for SharePoint before the takeover.

This integration enabled HP to enter into the SharePoint eDiscovery and compliance world as so many organizations with SharePoint now find themselves having to look at compliance issues and SharePoint carefully.

TRIM 7 Modules

With the two new modules, HP TRIM 7 enables users capture, search and manage of all types of physical and electronic business information across Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and the upcoming SharePoint Server 2010.

The two new modules include

• TRIM Records Management: Provides transparent access to all SharePoint Server content from the SharePoint Server workspace
• TRIM Archiving: Archives specific list objects in SharePoint Server, or entire SharePoint Server sites, to HP TRIM.

While TRIM’s ability to capture SharePoint records and archive them is not new, up until now the information it could manage was restricted to documents and limited to manual entry.

However, now capture policies can be defined by administrators and can include information that is contained in wikis, blog entries, blog comments, calendar entries and workflow events.

There are other advantages too. They include:

• Increased compliance and preparation for eDiscovery
• Apply compliance policy management across the enterprise
• TRIM can now manage the complete information lifecycle of corporate records
• Prove the authenticity of information with version control, access control and audit trails
• Support long-term information access in appropriate formats
• Support FOI requests by easily finding, redacting and rendering information for secure release
• Enforce a security structure that governs how information is used
• Easy-to apply text‑based search capabilities and metadata
• Apply lifetime policies seamlessly and manage all SharePoint

Given the number of organizations that are now using SharePoint and are considering SharePoint 2010, the new HP TRIM modules are quite timely and probably not the last module we are likely to see for TRIM.

Considering SharePoint does not have DoD 5015 certification for its built in records management capabilities — in SharePoint 2007 or SharePoint 2010 — many organizations using the platform will be looking for an integrated solution such as this one from HP.

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