You’ve narrowed down your choices on the best eDiscovery product for your company or firm. Great! Now, the question is—where should it be implemented? On the cloud, private cloud, or off-cloud?
First things first. Are all of these choices available for your select eDiscovery product? Many vendors offer cloud or private cloud options, but not off-cloud solutions. What are the pros and cons of each option? Are you missing out by not having the off-cloud option? Let’s review the benefits of each to simplify this decision-making process.
Cloud
A cloud offering provides the opportunity to utilize the software from the front end, with the vendor handling the necessary hosting and administration. Most vendors will also offer data handling and project management services. Your team will have access to Case Management, which allows them to handle the majority of project management tasks independently, including the use of Predictive Coding, batch management, production management, and more. The more your team evolves its skills, the less likely it will require the vendor for day-to-day support. Like other vendors, OpenText™ offers Case Manager certification for OpenText™ eDiscovery, specifically for this purpose.
If you use this vendor regularly for your projects, you can create a project template that incorporates the structure you prefer. For example, the OpenText Axcelerate Cloud team can craft a template that includes preferred coding arrangements, review workflows, coding rules, production workflows, privilege term highlighting, security settings, and customized metadata fields, among other options.
If you are looking for a primary eDiscovery solution that can provide hosting of the software and support for the back end, the cloud offering may be an appealing option. No hassling with exception handling, parser setup, file decryption, data corruption and the like. And you will always be using the most current version of the software.
Private Cloud
A private cloud offering provides you with full access to the software, including administrative control, within a privately hosted environment. Apart from the size, this cloud will be fairly cookie-cutter to allow for easy upgrade installation, patching, and maintenance. Some vendors offer customizations. For example, OpenText’s Cloud Solutions for OpenText eDiscovery enable the installation of connectors to other applications, the creation of workflows for automation, access to LaunchPadTM for security and data management, Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) options, and single-sign-on (SSO) capabilities. This team will also support migration work across other platforms.
With Administrative access, your team can fully craft their own day-to-day process. This may include creation of project templates, custom security groups, exception handling processes, and more. But the maintenance of the environment and the upgrade of the software are all taken care of by the vendor.
If you are looking for a primary eDiscovery solution that provides full access to the software but also covers hosting, maintenance, and upkeep of the software and its environment, this might be the best solution. This will allow for freedom and creativity in using the product while eliminating the need to build and maintain an infrastructure for it.
Off-cloud/Public cloud
An off-cloud offering enables you to purchase licenses for the software and install it on any device of your choice. This includes installation on your own public cloud solution. This gives full control of the software and its environment to you and your teams. Change management, customizations, level of security and access control, orchestration, etc., are managed by your team or contracted with the vendor to manage within your environment.
This offering may be appealing for companies that need to a) consolidate their software into their own space in a public cloud; b) apply very specific and customized security; c) control the frequency of upgrades; d) comply with internal policies regarding management of data; e) build complex customizations for automation, or f) to keep the software within the same environment with related applications (e.g., Legal Hold, Collections) or applications it needs to access via connectors for security purposes.
Your vendor will offer services that include software implementation, training, upgrades, patch installations, and connector installations. OpenText’s eDiscovery consultants offer end-to-end support that encompasses additional services, including SOP creation, topical workshops, operational services, automation development, orchestration, project management, ad hoc consulting, collection services, managed review, and more.
Know your alternatives
To sum up, a cloud offering is geared towards use cases that require only front-end software access without the need to staff back-end, administrative, or infrastructure support. Private cloud is ideal for those wanting full software access without the need to maintain the infrastructure or regularly update the software. Off-cloud is a great alternative for those who require full control of the software and its environment, whether it is kept on their own servers or within a public cloud environment like GCP, AWS, or Azure.
Whether you select a cloud, private cloud, or off-cloud solution, your OpenText team is available to support your needs within OpenText eDiscovery. If you are set up in a private cloud or off-cloud environment and would like project management support, these services can easily be leveraged by the OpenText Cloud team. Likewise, if you are in a private cloud and have a need for customizations offered to off-cloud customers, these can also be scoped to meet your specific needs. Hybrid and portable solutions are also available.
To further augment whatever flavor of implementation you are using, OpenText LegalTech also offers the following services:
