- BFSIBanking, Financial Services & Insurance
- IT & ITESIT services, BPM, GCCs & SaaS
- Retail & e-commerceStore chains, D2C brands & marketplaces
- HealthcareComing soon
- ManufacturingComing soon
Aquila I Email Archival
The auditor wants five years of a former employee’s mail. The mailbox was deleted last year — Aquila I Email Archival journals inbound, outbound and internal mail from Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace into write-once storage, with retention rules, indexed search and an Auditor role — quote-only, with the storage region unpublished.
Buy through TechBag
Same software. Better outcome — at a lower cost.
How it’s rated
Full scoreboard ↓Quick answer
The Aquila I platform family
This page covers Aquila I Email Archival — the archive for Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace mail. The rest:
Quick facts
30-second orientation- Product
- A cloud email archive: SMTP journaling, write-once storage, policy retention and indexed eDiscovery search
- Maker
- Aquila I Solutions Pvt. Ltd., Thane (Mumbai Metropolitan Region); founded 2020, no outside funding reported (Tracxn)
- Mail platforms
- Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace; inbound, outbound and internal mail, with headers, MIME and attachments
- Storage
- Immutable, write-once (WORM) storage, encrypted at rest and in transit, by Aquila I’s July 2025 datasheet
- Access
- Admin, Auditor and End User roles; SSO with Azure AD or Google (SAML/OIDC); MFA for privileged accounts
- Price
- Quote-only; no published list price, no INR price and no stated meter (per mailbox, per GB or per year)
- Customers
- Aquila I publishes no named customer case studies, for Email Archival or for any other product
- Analysts
- No analyst placement of any kind for Aquila I, in email archiving or any other market
- India
- An Indian company, but the archive’s hosting region is not published; India origin is not data residency
- In India via
- TechBag — mailbox and retention sizing, the region in writing, a quote in INR with GST
Understand compliance email archiving before you buy it
Most product pages skip this. We start here — so you buy a capability, not a buzzword.
What is a compliance email archive?
It keeps a tamper-proof copy of every message for a set retention period, searchable for audits and disputes.
Mailboxes and ad hoc exports vs Aquila I Email Archival — the honest table
What consolidation actually replaces, dimension by dimension.
| Dimension | Mailboxes and ad hoc exports | Aquila I Email Archival |
|---|---|---|
| Mail of someone who left | Gone when the licence is reclaimed | Still in the archive under its retention rule |
| A request from legal | Admins export mailboxes one by one | One indexed search, then a secure export |
| Proof nothing was altered | Mailboxes users can edit and delete from | Write-once storage with a full audit log |
| Two mail suites in one group | Separate tools for Microsoft and Google | One archive journaling both platforms |
| Who can search the record | Only the mail administrator | An Auditor role, signed in through SSO |
| What it is NOT | — | A backup, a chat archive, or a published price |
The cheapest test is one domain: journal it for a month, run a real legal search, and export the result before you sign.
The four pieces of the platform
Vendors love diagrams; buyers need to know what they’re actually operating. Here’s the whole platform, demystified.
Journaling
Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace sends a journal copy of every inbound, outbound and internal message by SMTP, with headers, MIME structure, metadata and attachments intact.
Store
Aquila I describes write-once, append-only storage, encrypted at rest and in transit, so a message cannot be edited or deleted early. Where that storage sits is not published.
Retention
Admins set retention by regulatory or business need and the platform enforces it, while an index of text and metadata filters by sender, recipient, attachment, keyword and date.
Access
Admin, Auditor and End User roles sign in through Azure AD or Google over SAML or OIDC, with MFA for privileged accounts; every search, export and admin change is logged.
SMTP journaling from Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace into write-once storage — retained by policy, indexed, opened through SSO roles.
Nine capabilities. Capture, retain, discover.
Aquila I Email Archival keeps a write-once, searchable copy of every message your Microsoft 365 or Google tenants send and receive.
Every message, three directions
SMTP journaling captures inbound, outbound and internal mail, so the record never depends on users keeping their own folders.
Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace
Both big cloud mail suites are named, which matters to groups whose units run different ones. On-premises Exchange is not named.
Kept exactly as sent
Headers, MIME structure, metadata and attachments are kept as transmitted, which Aquila I says keeps each copy fit for evidence.
Write-once storage
Append-only storage is meant to stop tampering, alteration or accidental deletion for the whole retention period, by Aquila I’s account.
Retention rules that enforce themselves
Retention periods are set to match regulatory or business needs and applied automatically, with every enforcement action auditable.
Bring the old archive across
Aquila I lists migration from legacy retention systems; ask which source formats it reads, who does the work and what it costs.
Full-text and metadata index
Search filters by sender, recipient, attachment, keyword and date range, aimed at legal requests and at internal investigations.
Secure export for reviews
Results leave through secure export workflows and structured audit reports; the export file format is not published, so ask for it.
Roles, SSO and a full audit log
Admin, Auditor and End User roles, SSO via Azure AD or Google, MFA for privileged users, and a log of every search and export.
Email is a business record. Aquila I Email Archival keeps it write-once and searchable.
Here’s what genuinely sets it apart — and exactly where it stops.
One archive for both cloud mail suites
Aquila I names Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace for its journaling capture, inbound, outbound and internal. That suits Indian groups where a plant or a subsidiary runs Google while head office runs Microsoft. Archives built around Exchange, such as TitanHQ ArcTitan and Barracuda’s, do not claim Google mail.
Write-once storage, retention you can audit
Aquila I describes WORM, append-only storage and retention enforcement that is deterministic and logged, which is what an auditor asks to see when email is a business record. Microsoft’s archive mailbox is a per-user store instead, and Microsoft does not permit journaling into it.
Access built for auditors, not only admins
A separate Auditor role, SSO through Azure AD or Google over SAML or OIDC, MFA for privileged accounts, and a log of every search, export and admin change. Compliance or legal can search the record without a mail administrator running each query, and the log shows who looked at what.
Where it stops
Aquila I does not publish where the archive is hosted, the first question for an Indian archive under DPDP and RBI or SEBI record-keeping. No price, meter, bulk export format or named customer is published; legal hold is not named as a feature, and Teams or chat capture is not claimed.
The numbers behind the platform
What your Aquila I Email Archival rollout looks like
Map mail, mailboxes and rules
List Microsoft 365 and Google tenants, mailbox counts, and the retention each regulator or contract demands of you.
Get the region and meter in writing
Ask Aquila I where the archive is stored, how it is metered and how a bulk export works; log it in your DPDP register.
Turn on journaling for a pilot
Point journaling from one tenant or domain at the archive and check that inbound, outbound and internal mail all arrive.
Test search, export and roles
Have legal run a real search by sender and date, export it, and confirm the Auditor role sees only what it should.
Migrate history and commit
Plan the legacy-archive import, set final retention rules, and sign only once the exit format is in the contract.
The review scoreboard
Modelled on Gartner Peer Insights structure. *Counts and breakdowns are illustrative pending verified review collection.
Quick poll — what’s driving your evaluation?
Talk to an advisor“Our Google Workspace plants and the Microsoft 365 head office now journal into one archive. Legal searched both at once.”
“The Auditor role lets our compliance team run searches themselves, so the mail admin is no longer the bottleneck.”
“Journaling from Microsoft 365 took a day to set up. Bringing ten years of the old archive across took weeks, with their help.”
“A search by sender, attachment and date found an ex-employee’s thread for a dispute in minutes, and the export held up.”
“We needed the storage region in writing for our DPDP register. It took two rounds of follow-up before the answer came.”
“The quote had no per-mailbox rate to set against the archive already in our E3 plan. Ask for the meter early.”
Where everyone sits — the grids
Analyst firms bury this view behind paywalls, and review-site grids score satisfaction, not fit for your estate. So here’s TechBag’s synthesis of the email archiving market — tap any vendor to see why it sits where it does.
TechBag Email Archiving Grid
Execution strength vs product vision — the classic market map, minus the paywall.
Quote-only; no meter, region or named customers published.
Retention Control × Capture Breadth
The grid nobody publishes — how strictly an archive locks down and audits the record vs how much it captures: mail suites, Teams, chat and voice.
M365 and Google by journaling; WORM and an Auditor role; no named hold.
Positions are TechBag’s illustrative synthesis of public review-platform data and vendor documentation — not a reproduction of any analyst graphic. Verify before relying on it.
Aquila I Email Archival vs the email archiving field
Against Microsoft Exchange Online Archiving, Mimecast Cloud Archive, Proofpoint Archive, TitanHQ ArcTitan and Barracuda Cloud Archiving — on capture, retention, search, access, price, India data and exit.
| Dimension | Aquila I Email Archival | Microsoft Exchange Online Archiving | Mimecast Cloud Archive | Proofpoint Archive | TitanHQ ArcTitan | Barracuda Cloud Archiving |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Journaling cloud archive | Archive in your tenant | Archive on a platform | Compliance archive | Cloud mail archive | Tier of a suite |
| Deployment | Aquila I cloud (SaaS) | Inside Microsoft 365 | Mimecast cloud | Managed SaaS on AWS | TitanHQ cloud | Barracuda cloud |
| Sources captured | M365 and Google mail | Mail, plus Teams | Email and Teams | Email to voice | M365 and Exchange | Exchange and M365 |
| Scale and storage | Not published | 100 GB to 1.5 TB | Not published | Not published | Unlimited, 200+/s | Unlimited per user |
| Retention and immutability | WORM, policy retention | Policies and holds | Up to 99 years | Immutable, WORM | Data Guardian sign-off | Policy-based |
| Search and legal hold | Search; hold not named | eDiscovery + holds | Cases and holds | Person-based holds | eDiscovery + hold | Multi-level search |
| Access and audit | Auditor role, SSO, MFA | Entra ID, audit log | Not on TechBag’s page | SSO, audit trails | Outlook, Data Guardian | Roles and audit trails |
| Included vs add-on | Own product | In E3, E5, Premium | Add to Mimecast | Family of modules | Own product or bundle | Premium Plus only |
| Pricing model | Quote; meter unstated | Per user, or in plan | Per user or storage | Enterprise quote | Quote, or bundle | Per user, by plan |
| Published entry price | Not published | $3/user/month add-on | Not published | Not published | Not published | Suite $3–12/user/mo |
| India data region | Unpublished; ask | India region available | Confirm in writing | US, Canada, EU listed | Not published | Not listed |
| Lock-in and exit | Exit format unpublished | Stays in your tenant | Export exists | Self-service export | Exit not published | Tied to the plan |
| Support and partners | 24×7, partner channel | Microsoft and partners | Direct or partner | 24/7 monitored SaaS | MSP programme | Partner-led |
| Best fit | Mixed M365 + Google | M365 E3/E5 estates | Mimecast email shops | Regulated enterprises | MSP-run M365 archives | Barracuda suite buyers |
Which approach fits you?
Honest fit signals — because the fastest way to lose your trust is to pretend one product wins every scenario.
Choose Aquila I Email Archival if…
- ✓Your group runs Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace side by side and wants one journaled archive for both
- ✓Auditors or legal must search the record themselves, through an Auditor role and SSO, with every search logged
- ✓You prefer an Indian vendor and can get the storage region, retention meter and exit format into the contract
Compare alternatives if…
- ✓You already pay for Microsoft 365 E3 or E5 — its archive, holds and India data region come with the plan
- ✓You must capture Teams, voice or social as well as mail — Proofpoint and Mimecast cover more channels
- ✓You want a published price — Microsoft lists Exchange Online Archiving at $3 per user a month
Do not expect…
- ✓A published storage region, price, meter or bulk export format from Aquila I
- ✓Teams, chat or voice capture, or a named legal-hold feature, in Aquila I’s own description
- ✓Named customer case studies or an analyst ranking for Aquila I
TechBag has no email archiving guide yet, so Aquila I Email Archival sits outside the category guides. Browse all products to compare it with the rest of the catalogue. →
What does finding old email cost you?
Drag the sliders (mailboxes in scope; staff-hour cost). Estimates model the IT and legal time spent finding, exporting and checking old mail for audits, disputes and investigations, at an assumed 1.5 hours per mailbox a year, with 70% of it removed by one indexed, policy-retained archive. Both figures are assumptions. Illustrative.
Loaded cost = salary + overheads per productive hour. Illustrative only — your TechBag quote models your actual environment and modules.
Three ways to consume it
Quote only. Aquila I publishes no price for Email Archival, no rupee price and no meter, so it is not clear whether you pay per mailbox, per GB stored or per year of retention. Its copy lists migration from legacy retention systems but does not price it. Set any quote beside Microsoft’s Exchange Online Archiving at $3.00 a user a month, or the archive already inside E3, E5 or Business Premium. TechBag gets the quote itemised in INR with GST.
Aquila I Email Archival
Best for mixed Microsoft 365 and Google estates
- Quoted; meter not published
- SMTP journaling into WORM storage
- Auditor role, SSO and a full audit log
+ Platform add-ons
Best for a broader rollout
- Scoped to your estate
- Add-on modules as needed
- Phased, right-sized deployment
Legacy archive migration
Best for firms leaving an older archive
- Listed by Aquila I; not priced
- Ask which source formats it reads
- Agree cut-over and exit format in writing
Buy it for less — TechBag pricing beats list
Whatever the list prices above, TechBag negotiates a significantly better deal — with GST-compliant INR invoicing and local support. Ask us for your discounted quote.
Get an India-ready quote
Tell us your requirements and current tools — we’ll model it against what you spend today.
The 8 questions to ask every vendor
Take this into your next vendor call — including ours.
Where is the archive physically stored, in which cloud and region, and will Aquila I commit to India in the contract?
Is the price per mailbox, per GB stored or per year of retention, and how does cost grow as years of mail pile up?
In what format can the whole archive be exported at contract end, how long does that take, and is there a charge?
Can a mailbox or a case be held so retention rules cannot delete it? Legal hold is not named in Aquila I’s copy.
Are both Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace in scope, and is on-premises Exchange or another mail server supported?
How is write-once storage enforced, and who, if anyone, can purge a record before its retention period ends?
Which legacy archives and file formats can be imported, who does the migration work, and is it priced separately?
Does your Microsoft 365 plan already include archiving? Check E3, E5 or Business Premium before buying a second one.
Questions buyers ask
Ready to evaluate Aquila I Email Archival?
Size your mailboxes and retention rules first, or let a TechBag advisor get the storage region, meter and exit format from Aquila I in writing before a one-domain pilot.
Stats, ratings, review counts and pricing are illustrative and sourced from public materials; verify before purchase.