In today’s legal technology landscape, the cloud is often hailed as the future. Around 62% of corporate data is stored in the cloud, according to Forrester.¹ As a result, many eDiscovery vendors are rapidly sunsetting their on-premise offerings and shifting their focus to cloud-native platforms. 

While this evolution brings undeniable benefits, it also leaves a critical segment of customers—those with stringent security, compliance, or data sovereignty requirements—searching for viable alternatives. Another number to consider is that 38% of corporate data is still off-cloud. In addition, corporations consolidating their data to a single cloud environment may also require on-premise applications that are not tied to vendor cloud solutions.

Not to mention that 90% of organizations are adopting a hybrid approach to their data, combining private, public, and off-cloud solutions for more adaptability.²

At OpenText, we recognize that not all organizations are ready or able to move to a vendor’s cloud environment. Our Professional Services (PS) team is committed to ensuring that our on-premises (off-cloud, private cloud, or hybrid) customers continue to thrive with OpenText™ Investigation (the on-premises version of OpenText™ eDiscovery). 

How OpenText Professional Services is closing the gap 

OpenText eDiscovery (formerly known as Axcelerate) is a powerful, end-to-end legal discovery platform built on advanced analytics, machine learning, and automation. While the Cloud Edition (“CE”) offers the most comprehensive feature set, our PS team has developed a suite of custom innovations that bring many of those capabilities (and more!) to the off-cloud version—ensuring our customers don’t have to compromise.

Here’s how we’re doing it:

Case Manager Tools: Automation at your fingertips 

Our Case Manager Tools (“CMT”) empower legal teams to perform essential tasks—such as creating projects, uploading data, and managing users—without requiring backend access. This intuitive, menu-driven interface reduces reliance on administrators and data processors, accelerating project setup while maintaining strict security controls.

CMT also serves as a springboard for additional custom workflows, including: 

• Smart Tagger creation 
• Custodian management 
• Redaction label management 
• Security management 

Modern data support: Audio, video, and beyond 

Modern data support: Audio, video, and beyond 

As user-generated data evolves, so does OpenText. Our PS team has developed off-cloud solutions for modern data support, including: 

• Audio/video playback: Stream MP3/MP4 files in-browser with optional automation to overlay transcription using open-source tools. No more downloading to play offline. 

• Custom templates: Capture modern metadata like:  
  • Microsoft Sensitivity Labels, 
  • Geolocation, and
  • Collaborative document data

• Custom parsers: Ingest exported data from platforms like:  
  • Webex,  
  • Zoom,  
  • WhatsApp,  
  • Jira, and
  • Social media sources

AI-powered enrichment with customer-owned large language models 

One of the most exciting innovations is the ability to leverage a customer’s large language model (LLM) to enrich documents within their own secure environments. Whether at ingestion, enrichment, or via user-triggered prompts, customers can: 

• Create AI-generated document summaries
• Create dynamic document classifications
• Identify named entities
• Perform sentiment analysis and clause detection

This approach ensures that sensitive data never leaves the customer’s infrastructure while unlocking the power of generative AI. 

Administrator Toolbox: Simplifying system management 

The Administrator Toolbox centralizes common administrative tasks into a single, customizable interface. From starting/stopping engines to generating system reports and exporting logs, this tool enhances operational efficiency and supports proactive system health monitoring. Other repeatable tasks can be customized into the Administrator Toolbox upon request. 

Seamless migrations 

For organizations transitioning from Relativity Server or other eDiscovery products, our PS team offers automated migration workflows that streamline: 

• Field mapping 
• Template creation 
• Data export and automated staging (e.g., from Relativity ARM archives, etc.) 
• Ingestion and publishing into OpenText eDiscovery or OpenText Investigation upon staging  
• Proper prioritization by data queueing 

This end-to-end automation reduces manual effort and accelerates time-to-value. We begin the process with a Pilot phase to add necessary customizations. Then our team can either perform the actual migration or cross-train the customer’s staff to use the automation we have set up.

This service is available from the PS team for migrating legacy data to either our cloud or off-cloud solution. 

Why off-cloud eDiscovery still matters 

While the current industry trend leans heavily toward the cloud, many law firms and legal departments—especially in government, finance, and healthcare—must adhere to both regulatory requirements and internal security standards to address data residency, privacy, security, and efficiency needs. For these organizations, off-cloud solutions aren't just a preference—they're a necessity. 

Customers who can use Cloud with some restrictions may require a more hybrid solution. This will allow on-premises collection, processing, and culling of data, while still enabling cloud solutions when it's time for document review. With OpenText eDiscovery, there are options available to seamlessly move data from an on-premise application directly to the cloud. 

OpenText remains committed to supporting customers with robust, secure, and innovative solutions that meet their needs wherever they install their OpenText software. 

Looking ahead: The roadmap for 2026 

Our innovation journey is just getting started. Here's a glimpse of what's ahead for OpenText Investigation off-cloud: 

Expanded LLM integration

• Enrich data via saved searches using custom AI prompts 
• Create AI-enhanced classifications based on user-defined responsiveness for AI-enhanced first pass review 
• Create AI-enhanced classifications for privilege, confidentiality, and Personally Identifiable Information (“PII”) 

Enhanced case manager tools

• Create Global Saved Searches for Smart Taggers 
• Integrate the Administrator Toolbox within CMT 
• Expand publish options that include straight from Ingest to Publish, and support loading directly into OpenText Investigation and Review & Analysis applications 

New administrator toolbox features

• Auto-shutdown of the environment 
• Engine management (e.g., convert single-engine to multi-engine in early case assessment (ECA), add new sub-engine) 
• Generate system utilization and project size reports for the environment 

Template Augmentations

• Capture custom field values from Google Apps and Gmail 

This roadmap is flexible and customer-driven. If there’s a feature you need, we’re ready to review the best available customized options. 

Let's talk

Whether you're staying off-cloud or operating in a hybrid model, OpenText Investigation and our Professional Services team are built to support you. Talk to your Project Manager to explore how we can tailor deployment to fit your needs.

The post Secure, smart, and innovative: eDiscovery solutions on-premise  appeared first on OpenText Blogs.