Administering an Exchange Server 2013 Environment (part 8) - Understanding Archiving

6. Understanding Archiving

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) to continue 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 2013 provides users with a default mailbox size of 2 gigabytes (GB), 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 2013 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 policies for individual mailboxes.

Archiving in Exchange Server 2013 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 Access 2013 (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 he or she would with the 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 off-loaded to the personal archive automatically, using retention policies, 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 Access.

• 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 also set 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 2013, 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) can 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.

• Retention Hold—Placing a retention hold on a mailbox temporarily suspends retention policies from applying to a mailbox for a designated period of time. When a mailbox is placed on retention hold, the administrator can optionally specify a retention comment that indicates that the mailbox is on retention hold. This comment can include the dates when the retention hold is scheduled to begin and end. These retention comments are visible in supported Outlook clients and can also be displayed in the preferred language of the user.

Enabling Archiving on a Mailbox

There are few things in the world that are simpler than enabling an archive for an Exchange Server 2013 mailbox. By navigating to the user mailbox (EAC, Recipients, Mailboxes), administrators can double-click the mailbox, select Mailbox Features, under Archiving select Enable, and then choose the archive mailbox database.

Administrators can, if they want, place a quota on the archive. The quota is enabled by selecting Edit Details under Archiving, and then entering the quota and warning sizes. This quota, placed on the archive mailbox, is completely separate from any quotas placed on the primary mailbox. Administrators can provide a name for the archive here, which will show up in Outlook as the folder name.

Accessing the Mailbox Archive

Archived messages are of little use to the end user if the end user cannot access them. With an Exchange Server 2013 archive, the user can view the contents (and search through the contacts) while connected to the network with Outlook 2013 or Outlook Web Access 2013. 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.