sharing email archives

[Amedee Van Gasse]

Hello,

We use Exchange 2003 and Outlook 2003.

I have a question about email archives.
Currently our users archive old mail to a .PST file, which may be on
their C-drive or on a network share.
We got a question about sharing archives. A secretary needs to be able
to work with the archive of her boss.

We came across a few dead ends:
* putting a .PST file on a network share won't work, the .PST file
cannot be opened by multiple users.
* Using "Public Folders" is a no go, because The Powers That Be
decided that we won't use Public Folders. Anyway, according to my own
research, Public Folders are phasing out and won't be supported in
Exchange versions after 2012.
* Don't archive and share the mailbox: standard quota is 100 MiB. If
we don't restrict quota usage, some users won't have a problem with
filling their mailbox with multiple gigabytes of "funny powerpoints"
etc...
* Use a shared mailbox for archiving: this is just another version of
the previous option.

Any other suggestions?

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

Hello,

We use Exchange 2003

Standard or Enterprise, and what SP?

and Outlook 2003.

I have a question about email archives.
Currently our users archive old mail to a .PST file, which may be on
their C-drive or on a network share.

It must be on the local hard drive. Don't put PST files on network
drives.....it isn't supported.

See http://support.microsoft.com/?id=297019

We got a question about sharing archives. A secretary needs to be able
to work with the archive of her boss.

We came across a few dead ends:
* putting a .PST file on a network share won't work, the .PST file
cannot be opened by multiple users.

Nope. See
http://www.exchangefaq.org/faq/Exchange-5.5/Why-PST-=-BAD-/q/Why-PST-=-BAD/qid/1209
for a list of other reasons not to use them at all.

* Using "Public Folders" is a no go, because The Powers That Be
decided that we won't use Public Folders. Anyway, according to my own
research, Public Folders are phasing out and won't be supported in
Exchange versions after 2012.

PST files are not the answer either.

* Don't archive and share the mailbox: standard quota is 100 MiB.

Wow. Why such a tiny quota?

If
we don't restrict quota usage, some users won't have a problem with
filling their mailbox with multiple gigabytes of "funny powerpoints"
etc...

* Use a shared mailbox for archiving: this is just another version of
the previous option.

Any other suggestions?

Yep - disable autoarchive and don't use PST files - bump the quotas up (add
disk space if you have to, or upgrade to Enterprise if you're on SP2 and
still in danger of hitting the 75GB limit) .

Look into third party archive software products (GFI, Quest, Symantec,
whatnot) if you continue to have problems.

 

[Amedee Van Gasse]

Standard or Enterprise, and what SP?

I don't know, I'm not an Exchange admin.
I'm doing 2nd level support on the Outlook side of the mail system.

It must be on the local hard drive. Don't put PST files on network
drives.....it isn't supported.

Seehttp://support.microsoft.com/?id=297019

I already knew that and my research confirmed it, but thanks anyway.

Nope. Seehttp://www.exchangefaq.org/faq/Exchange-5.5/Why-PST-=-BAD-/q/Why-PST-...
for a list of other reasons not to use them at all.

Aaaah! Thank you VERY MUCH!
It's articles like these that I need to convince The Powers That Be.

Wow. Why such a tiny quota?

Uhhh... dunno. Is that really tiny? It was the same in Lotus Notes.
Standard quota = 100 MiB, they can request upgrades to 250 MiB, 500
MiB, 2 GiB.
Which will of course be charged to the customer.

What do you consider a "reasonable" quota? By the way, we are talking
about nearly 4000 users on several Exchange servers (this site alone,
the company has other sites too, I wonder what they use for email
archiving...).

Yep - disable autoarchive and don't use PST files - bump the quotas up (add
disk space if you have to, or upgrade to Enterprise if you're on SP2 and
still in danger of hitting the 75GB limit) .

4000 users * 100 MiB = 400 GiB
Or were you talking about 75 GiB per user?

Look into third partyarchivesoftware products (GFI, Quest, Symantec,
whatnot) if you continue to have problems.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm afraid I'll have to draw a SEP
field around third party products...


Thank you very much for your reply!
Kind regards,

Amedee Van Gasse

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

I don't know, I'm not an Exchange admin.
I'm doing 2nd level support on the Outlook side of the mail system.


I already knew that and my research confirmed it, but thanks anyway.

No prob.

Aaaah! Thank you VERY MUCH!
It's articles like these that I need to convince The Powers That Be.

Hope it helps....

Uhhh... dunno. Is that really tiny?

Yes, I'd say so.

It was the same in Lotus Notes.
Standard quota = 100 MiB, they can request upgrades to 250 MiB, 500
MiB, 2 GiB.
Which will of course be charged to the customer.

What do you consider a "reasonable" quota?

That's really hard to answer - it's a company decision & must also depend on
your hardware/version of Exchange/etc - plus how easily you can back up and
restore your data.

By the way, we are talking
about nearly 4000 users on several Exchange servers

Youch - then you definitely need to keep PST files off your network.

(this site alone,
the company has other sites too, I wonder what they use for email
archiving...).


4000 users * 100 MiB = 400 GiB
Or were you talking about 75 GiB per user?

If you're using Exchange 2003 Standard with SP2, that's your limit for your
single allowed mailbox store - 75GB. If you use Enterprise, you're pretty
much limited only by what your hardware (and your backup/restore
window/SLA ) can support.

Regardless of your version, make sure you take your "deleted item retention"
(DIRT) into account - it takes up space in the store, too.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm afraid I'll have to draw a SEP
field around third party products...

SEP? Simplified Employee Pension?

Honestly, you'll need something third party - or your company will have to
decide that anything that can't fit in a 100MB mailbox has to be thrown out
& won't be supported.

 

[Amedee Van Gasse]

Nope. See http://www.exchangefaq.org/faq/Exchange-5.5/Why-PST-=-BAD-/q/Why-PST-...
for a list of other reasons not to use them at all.

I just checked with my boss.
A reason to put PST archives on fileservers is that $/diskspace is a
different budget for fileservers than for exchange servers.
File servers are also maintained by a different group of people than
Exchange servers.
So yet another case of a Somebody Else's Problem field.
<end of rant>

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

I just checked with my boss.
A reason to put PST archives on fileservers is that $/diskspace is a
different budget for fileservers than for exchange servers.
File servers are also maintained by a different group of people than
Exchange servers.
So yet another case of a Somebody Else's Problem field.
<end of rant>

Oy.

Show them
"Personal folder files are unsupported over a LAN or over a WAN link"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297019

...and make sure you've got your recommendations to them in writing/email so
when someone loses two years' worth of archived mail, you don't have to take
the bullet.

 

[Amedee Van Gasse]

Oy.

Show them
"Personal folder files are unsupported over a LAN or over a WAN link"http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297019

..and make sure you've got your recommendations to them in writing/email so
when someone loses two years' worth of archived mail, you don't have to take
the bullet.

I did the CMA (Cover My Assets) dance and it's noted in the meeting
minutes.
They say that Worst Case Scenario is that only the email of the last
few days is lost, because of network backups.
I suppose that may be a valid argument - provided that backups are
succesful.

OTOH, each version of a backup stores the entire multigigabyte PST
file because it sees it as one file.
That doesn't sound like an efficient backup. I'm not an exchange
expert, but I am sure that exchange incremental or differential
backups are smart enough to only back up the new or changed mail, not
the entire mailbox. But again, that is SEP.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.