New Federal Rules for Electronic Archiving         New rules that compel companies to produce electronically stored information for civil litigation are now in place for tracking and archiving e-mail, electronic documents, digital images and spreadsheets.      The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which took effect Dec. 1, are forcing many IT managers to take a look at their electronic record-archiving policies.      In the past, courts have awkwardly applied electronic records rules for producing paper documents for civil litigation. Under the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, businesses have 120 days to turn over electronic documents requested as evidence in civil cases. And if that information is going to be prohibitively difficult or expensive to produce, the onus is on the business to prove that to a judge. While the rules specifically apply in federal courts, state courts are likely to adopt them as well.      The rules don't specify what electronic records businesses must retain or for how long. Companies, in fact, are allowed to purge unneeded electronic documents as part of their regular data retention practices, but not if they have been requested for a civil case. Last May, financial services giant Morgan Stanley paid a $15 million fine to settle an SEC charge.      IT managers are figuring out that they must be more proactive in developing policies for what electronic records they retain, for how long, and how and when to dispose of those documents.      Calling in outside experts to help locate electronic records needed for litigation can cost upward of $50,000 per day. New electronic record archiving systems and policies will help reduce those costs, in addition to complying with the new civil procedure rules.           Some businesses turn to tape backup systems when facing demands for digital documents in civil litigation. But locating specific documents and e-mails on backup tapes that contain huge volumes of information is a tedious and expensive process.      Backup tapes are meant for disaster recovery, not for finding documents. And failure rates for reading data on aging tapes runs between 30 percent and 50 percent. Businesses are already moving away from tape to disk for data backup and the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure will accelerate that trend. .      It will be during 2007 that most businesses discover just how inadequate their electronic record management systems are, when they find themselves facing a lawsuit and can't find the electronic records they need.   The best plan is to be proactive verses reactive, automatic email logging and data archiving is the ounce of prevention that is most affordable.      Excerpts By Rick Whiting, V.A.R.Business