Microsoft Exchange Archiving

Nikumba · 31 Jan 2012 at 10:43

Just after some ideas as to what other people do.

We current have a Exchange 2k7 environment with approx 150Gb of mail stores, and probably another 50Gb in PST files on our primary file server.

We were talking about an online archive system, but we also think it would be better to archive email at point of entry and exit rather than from the users mailbox directly.

I also know there is something about keeping emails for 7 years for financial reasons etc.

So question is what do other people do?

Kimbie

mr.bond · 31 Jan 2012 at 12:50

All depends what features you need, how much you're willing to spend, and if you want an in house or hosted solution. (depending on numbers of mailboxes there may be cost break somewhere in amongst that lot).

Have a google on the below for some ideas

Hosted:
Google Postini
Mimecast
Message Labs (when I saw it 18 months ago stil lhad some way to go)

In house:
Xantas
Symantec Enterprise vault (heard good things)

spudbynight · 31 Jan 2012 at 13:45

I have used mimecast for years. I have found it to be incredibly reliable and also works very well for filtering spam.

Will Gill · 31 Jan 2012 at 13:52

we use enterprise vault, decent enough

Ev0 · 31 Jan 2012 at 14:01

Used to use what was then EAS by Zantaz, now Autonomy, at a previous employer.

http://protect.autonomy.com/products/content-archiving/consolidated-archive/index.htm

It was ok, seemed to do the job ok to me but then I wasn't involved in supporting it

Jimathy · 31 Jan 2012 at 14:04

MailDistiller.com is worth a look for a hosted solution, price is per user though at £2.65 per month each.

Nikumba · 31 Jan 2012 at 16:30

Our email comes in through Messagelab's and we are happy with the filtering of it.

We are just looking at ways to improve the user side of things, for instance laptop users their archive PST file is on a network share, which will not sync across with Offline files so if they are away from the network will not work, but if the archive was online then would be.

I have used GFI Mail Archiver at one point and that seemed ok, will look at the Enterprise vault

Kimbie

topher · 31 Jan 2012 at 17:42

http://www.cryoserver.com :-)

droyden · 31 Jan 2012 at 18:43

Exchange 2010 has the personal archive mailboxes - not sure if that was in 2007? (we skipped that).
It does require a premium cal tho

Deathwish · 31 Jan 2012 at 19:01

Enterprise Vault as of v8 IIRC has a Virtual Vault which appears to the end user as a PST (It isn't a PST) in Outlook, it can be used offline away from the network too. You can control how much content is cached locally.

We started with KVS Enterprise Vault 5 and we are now on v9.

Mattitude · 2 Feb 2012 at 13:58

Do not use Autonomy EAS! lol its a nightmare we are now looking to spend a lot of money on a new solution.

MasterPlan1 · 3 Feb 2012 at 09:42

Deathwish said:
Enterprise Vault as of v8 IIRC has a Virtual Vault which appears to the end user as a PST (It isn't a PST) in Outlook, it can be used offline away from the network too. You can control how much content is cached locally.

We started with KVS Enterprise Vault 5 and we are now on v9.

Yup, you can also use offline vault - which is a godsend for when EV goes down, or users go offline with their laptops.

From what I hear EV10 is a much better product than 9 and it's predecesors. We plan on upgrading to 10 in Q2 when we decide to implement FSA.

HungryHippos · 3 Feb 2012 at 10:47

Mattitude said:
Do not use Autonomy EAS! lol its a nightmare we are now looking to spend a lot of money on a new solution.

+1 for not using EAS - we got rid of it in the end. Support was non-existent.

Mattitude - if you need to extract lots of data from EAS we used a company called TransVault to provide the migration tools for us. Was quite expensive though mind, you pay for data volumes basically.

I would probably go for something hosted like Mimecast if I were you, at least you don't need to fix it if it breaks then, and it's good for redundancy as it's off site.

Yamahahahahaha · 3 Feb 2012 at 14:22

We've deployed 2010 Archive Mailboxes and they work quite well.
The Enterprise CAL was an extra 50% on top of the Standard CAL per user.

This requires at least Outlook 2007 SP2 (SP3?) to function properly.

GFI Mailarchiver is pretty decent in my experience, but it's another database and another system to manage. Users can go in through a web interface to recover deleted emails themselves, saving IT administration.

It depends how simple and integrated you want to make things.

walnuts · 3 Feb 2012 at 14:40

We're using Quest Archive Manager. Find support from Quest to be very good and their product is easy to install. I updated to latest version last Sunday and it only took me 30mins. Customers of Archive Manager now also get cut down version of Quest Recovery Manager for Exchange. This allows you search for emails from all sources (live mail server & server with email archive software) and export result to .pst, live mailbox or public folder.

Only other software I considered was Symantec Enterprise Vault but it was more expensive than Quest Archive Manager.