34. A method for executing operations in accordance with instructions stored on a computer readable medium having software code embodied therein for managing information, the software code comprising computer-executable instructions for: extracting original data from at least two different data sources, a backup tape data source and a networked data source and another data source; determining email files within the original data; extracting information from the email files using an email extraction engine; forwarding the information extracted from the email files to a de-duplication engine; separating the information extracted from the email files and other original data in content portions and metadata portions; analyzing the content portions; placing, into a collective database, a single copy of unique content portions; and placing, into a collective database, at least one copy of the metadata portions including information regarding from where the files were obtained; collecting the data within a collective database; from a user of the computer system, receiving at least one rule, including: a retention policy for the data; and a query for the data, wherein the query for the data includes a query of at least one of the following for the data: subject matter, author, type, and content; using the rule, identifying: compliant data that comply with the retention policy; and targeted data that correspond to the query; and using the rule, preserving the compliant data and the targeted data within the database, while deleting at least a portion of other data that are neither compliant data nor targeted data within the database.
34. A method for executing operations in accordance with instructions stored on a computer readable medium having software code embodied therein for managing information, the software code comprising computer-executable instructions for: extracting original data from at least two different data sources, a backup tape data source and a networked data source and another data source; determining email files within the original data; extracting information from the email files using an email extraction engine; forwarding the information extracted from the email files to a de-duplication engine; separating the information extracted from the email files and other original data in content portions and metadata portions; analyzing the content portions; placing, into a collective database, a single copy of unique content portions; and placing, into a collective database, at least one copy of the metadata portions including information regarding from where the files were obtained; collecting the data within a collective database; from a user of the computer system, receiving at least one rule, including: a retention policy for the data; and a query for the data, wherein the query for the data includes a query of at least one of the following for the data: subject matter, author, type, and content; using the rule, identifying: compliant data that comply with the retention policy; and targeted data that correspond to the query; and using the rule, preserving the compliant data and the targeted data within the database, while deleting at least a portion of other data that are neither compliant data nor targeted data within the database. 36. The method of claim 34 , wherein the software code further comprises at least one instruction for storing the targeted data in a persistent memory source.