As previously stated, archiving
is the process of managing the size of an environment’s data store by
taking a backup copy of historical data, removing it from its native
environment, and storing it elsewhere.
By integrating
archiving directly into Exchange Server, Microsoft has enabled
organizations to store this historical data without the complex
administration and (often significant) additional licensing costs that
can come with the integration of third-party applications.
The Benefits of Archiving
As users send and
receive messages, maintaining older messages for historical purposes
results in the mailbox (and the associated database) continuing to grow
in size. Where users once could function with mailboxes that were
measured in the tens (or at the most, hundreds) of megabytes, Exchange
Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2010 provide users with a default
mailbox size of 2 gigabytes, and it is not unusual for users to fill
this space completely and require more.
With the growing need
for larger and larger mailboxes comes a need to systematically archive
historical data, freeing up space inside the user’s mailbox to enhance
performance, while retaining access to the historical data when it is
needed.
Archiving can also help
organizations better address compliance and legal electronic discovery
requirements by allowing the historical data to be easily managed and
searched.
Users with an
archive enabled can perform searches on both the primary mailbox AND the
archive mailbox at once—searching through all subfolders for the
desired message.
Exchange Server 2010
now features new archiving capabilities that combine with additional
enhanced mailbox management features that include the capability to
perform advanced multi-mailbox searches and apply legal hold and granular retention polices for individual mailboxes.
Archiving in Exchange Server 2010 is composed of four main concepts:
Personal Archive—
A personal archive is an additional mailbox that is associated with a
user’s primary mailbox. It appears beneath the primary mailbox folders
in Outlook Web App 2010 (similar to the way .pst archives were shown)
and is labeled Online Archive – Username. This enables the user to have
direct access to email within the archive just as they would their
primary mailbox. Users can drag and drop PST files into the Personal
Archive, for easier online access—and more efficient discovery by the
organization. Mail items from the primary mailbox can also be offloaded
to the Personal Archive automatically, using Retention Polices, reducing
the size and improving the performance of the primary mailbox. With a
personal archive, users can now have access to their archived mail
without having to have local access to a .pst file and can access the
archived mail from anywhere in the world using Outlook Web App.
Retention policies—
Retention policies are utilized to enable and enforce desired retention
settings to specific items or folders in a mailbox. These policies are
configured by the Exchange Administrator and are displayed inside each
email, along with a header stating the applied policy and delete date.
Utilizing retention policies makes it easy for a user to identify when
an email is set for expiration—and the user has the ability to apply a
new expiration policy if the email needs to be retained for a longer
period. Administrators can set also a default policy that can move
messages from the primary mailbox to the Archive automatically, removing
the responsibility for maintaining the archive from the user.
Multi-Mailbox Search—
In Exchange Server 2010, the ability to search for mailbox items across
multiple mailboxes, including email, attachments, calendar items,
tasks, contacts, and IRM-protected files, is a welcome addition to those
who specialize in eDiscovery. Multi-mailbox search searches both the
primary and archive mailboxes for a user simultaneously and utilizes an
easy-to-use control panel. Utilizing this feature, authorized personnel
(such as HR representatives, legal, and compliance users) perform
searches as needed, without the extremely time-consuming involvement of
your already overworked IT staff. Mail that is located through a mailbox
search can be copied and moved to a specified mailbox or external store
for further investigation.
Legal Hold—
Placing a legal hold on a mailbox enables immediate preservation of a
user’s mailbox, including deleted and edited mailbox emails,
appointments, tasks, and contacts. This hold is applied to both the
primary mailbox and Personal Archive. A legal hold can be set on
individual mailboxes or across the enterprise. Additionally,
administrators have the option to automatically alert the users that a
hold has been placed on their mailbox or not, as desired.
Enabling Archiving on a Mailbox
There
are few things in the world that are simpler than enabling an archive
for an Exchange Server 2010 mailbox. By navigating to the user mailbox
(EMC \ Recipient Configuration \ Mailbox \ select mailbox),
administrators can right-click on the mailbox and select Enable Archive.
The
administrator is presented with a notification that informs them that an
Exchange Enterprise client access license (CAL) is required to enable
the online archive and asks if they want to proceed. Clicking Yes
creates and enables the archive. The archive mailbox can be created only
on the same mailbox database as the primary mailbox.
Administrators can, if
they want, go into the mailbox properties and select the Mailbox
Settings tab and double-click Archive Quota to place a quota on the
archive. The quota is enabled by selecting the Issue Warning at (MB)
check box and entering the quota size. This quota, placed on the Archive
Mailbox, is completely separate from any quotas placed on the primary
mailbox.
When a mailbox in
Exchange Server 2010 has the archive enabled, the icon associated with
the mailbox changes to a white circle with a blue “i” in the middle.
Accessing the Mailbox Archive
Archived messages are of
little use to the end user if they cannot access them. With an Exchange
Server 2010 archive, the user can view the contents (and search through
the contacts) while connected to the network with Outlook 2010 or
Outlook Web App 2010. Earlier versions of Outlook and OWA (2003 and
2007) cannot access the archive mailbox.
As the archive mailbox node is stored on the Exchange server, it is not accessible by offline users, even those in cached mode.
Because messages that are
auto-archived retain the same folder structure in the archive that they
had in the primary mailbox, users with complex folder structures are
unable to maintain them, and searches can be conducted that span both
the primary and archive mailbox at the same time.
