About Us
AI-Ready Trusted Data @ Speed and Scale
Since 2006, the Smart Stack has served as a core Microsoft solution suite, purpose-built to address the most challenging data identification, data availability, and compliance challenges within the Microsoft ecosystem.
More Than 25 Years of Trusted Data
When regulators made it clear that email could be used as legal evidence, everything changed. Organizations suddenly needed communications preserved in a tamper-proof environment. That is when EAS took the world by storm, and a 25-year standard was born.
When Email Became Evidence: Smart Stack 1.0 (2013)
EAS archived email inside secure journal envelopes so it could not be altered. It compressed the data to reduce storage costs. It indexed and managed it so it was searchable and easily retrievable. The result was powerful: legally defensible, legally usable Trusted Data.
That combination was transformational. Microsoft could store data, but it was not necessarily preserved inside a secure journal envelope designed for evidentiary integrity. That distinction matters. EAS, CAMM, and Nearpoint established Zantaz as a trusted leader in enterprise archiving, delivering compliance, retention, and defensible data preservation for Exchange-centric organizations. We have been delivering that standard for more than 25 years.
EAS was designed for environments where regulatory scrutiny is assumed, not occasional. It preserves what most systems quietly discard: the complete journal envelope. That envelope contains the metadata regulators expect and courts demand when intent and disclosure are questioned, including BCC recipients, expanded distribution lists, and routing details. Native Microsoft tools do not reliably retain this information. EAS does.
From Archive to Refinery: Smart Stack 2.0 (2020)
With Smart Stack 2.0, we expanded beyond email and added Data Detect (now Data Identifier). We went after file shares and unstructured data: the chaotic, unmanaged content sitting across enterprises. We asked the questions most organizations could not answer:
Who owns this data? Is it classified? Is it redundant? Is it compliant? Is it defensible?
By introducing HPCA, Z Cloud, Supervisor, and Data Identifier, this generation expanded Smart Stack beyond archiving to include supervision, discovery, and cloud-scale intelligence. We transformed unstructured, untrusted data into Trusted Data: governed, searchable, policy-aligned. Not just stored, but refined.
Smart Stack 2.0 was the cloud-era expansion that supported increasingly distributed Microsoft environments and rising regulatory complexity. Z Cloud delivered the compliance posture of HPCA in a fully managed SaaS model, removing hardware and upgrade burdens while preserving immutability and defensibility. Supervisor introduced communications monitoring that allowed organizations to oversee data for regulatory compliance and discovery without standing up additional infrastructure.
The Trusted Data Portal: Smart Stack 3.0 (2026)
Now with Smart Stack 3.0, we complete the evolution. The Trusted Data Portal brings together the legally trusted data preserved in the archive and the legally trusted data refined through the Trusted Data Refinery. It delivers that data through a controlled, immutable, policy-enforced environment designed for the AI era.
Every interaction is governed. Every action is logged. Chain of custody is preserved from ingestion through AI interaction. The Portal ensures that AI interacts only with approved, classified datasets; lineage is traceable; access is governed; outputs are explainable; and regulatory scrutiny can be satisfied.
Every Trusted Data Portal operation executed within Smart Stack is now protected in transit using NIST-standardized post-quantum cryptographic algorithms. The data is not only legally defensible and AI-ready, it is resilient against emerging quantum computing threats. We are no longer just preserving evidence. We are protecting how data is used today and into the future.
Under the surface, the Trusted Data Portal is built on three coordinated layers. Elasticsearch organizes meaning, indexing enriched metadata into Trusted Data Collections that represent what matters rather than indiscriminate volumes of files. Nextcloud enables action, providing a controlled workspace for staging, collaboration, and governed distribution. MCP makes AI use safe, giving Copilot and enterprise agents a standardized interface that queries curated collections under policy rather than roaming raw repositories. Every AI response can be traced back to the exact source, version, and policy context of the underlying data.
Returning to Our Roots
That is why we call it Smart Stack. We are returning to who we have always been. From archiving email in tamper-proof journal envelopes, to refining unstructured data into admissible Trusted Data, to delivering AI-ready, quantum-resilient data through the Trusted Data Portal, we have always done the same thing. We take enterprise data and put it in a trusted state:
Immutable. Searchable. Governed. Defensible. Future-resilient.
That is not just archiving. That is Smart Stack.
A Microsoft Companion, Not a Replacement
Zantaz is a purpose-built Microsoft Companion, designed to extend Microsoft 365, Azure, Purview, OneLake, and Copilot with the data intelligence and readiness Microsoft intentionally does not provide natively. We do not replace Microsoft services. We prepare the AI-Ready data those services depend on. By refining data upstream, before it reaches Copilot, AI agents, analytics platforms, or governance layers, Zantaz enables Microsoft AI to operate with accuracy, safety, and scale in production environments.
Smart Stack 3.0 is delivered under an all-inclusive enterprise license, removing per-user penalties and usage constraints. Compliance and AI readiness should never be throttled by procurement friction. The same doctrine that has guided every generation since 2013 still applies. Before AI can reason, data must be remembered correctly. Before data can be remembered, it must be preserved completely. That is what Smart Stack does.
Key Benefits
- 25+ Years of Trusted Data: A continuous standard of evidentiary integrity, from journal envelopes to quantum-resilient AI access.
- Immutable and Defensible: Data preserved in tamper-proof environments, audit-ready from day one.
- Quantum-Resilient Security: NIST-standardized post-quantum cryptographic protection for data in transit across every Portal operation.
- One Consistent Mission: Take enterprise data and place it in a state that is immutable, searchable, governed, and defensible.
Conclusion
From the beginning, our mission has been clear: deliver Trusted Data at speed and scale. Each generation of Smart Stack has expanded that principle, from protecting and preserving communications to refining unstructured data into Trusted Data, to delivering governed, AI-ready intelligence through the Trusted Data Portal. The principle has never changed. Now we deliver AI-Ready Trusted Data @ Speed and Scale.
