Topics | How To | Related Topics
Migration Archiving Considerations
This section discusses migration archiving information that is specific to the Exchange Mailbox and Public Folder Archiver Agents. See Migration Archiving for a general overview.
During archive operations, the Exchange Mailbox/Public Folder Archiver Agents will archive subclient content (i.e., Mailbox messages and Public Folder items) that meet the preset criteria specified in the Archiving Rules. Additionally, when the Outlook Add-In is used in conjunction with the Exchange Mailbox Archiver Agent, the migration archiving operation will also include messages and folders that were added to the Archive List from Outlook clients. Information about each archived object is placed into a stub (when enabled) that can then be used as a link to recover the data. For the Exchange Mailbox/Public Folder Archiver Agents, if the Select Items with attachment(s) Only option is selected in the subclient properties, it will only archive attachments of the mail message or public folder item.
The configuration of the archiving rules is central to customizing archive operations to meet the needs of your organization. Continue on to the following section for an in-depth discussion of the archiving rules for these agents.
The migration archiving operation is based on subclients, so the following configuration is per subclient basis. Most of the following options are located in the subclient properties dialog box, except where otherwise noted.
The following factors will determine which mailboxes will be scanned and which data objects will be archived. The items listed below are in order of precedence, such that the beginning items take precedence over the latter ones.
This option specifies whether the archiving rules for this subclient will be disabled. When selected for Exchange Mailbox Archiver, this option will cause the system to ignore all archiving rules (except for the Stub Rules and Leave Behind Message Body for items added to the Archive List in Outlook) for the subclient.
|
These options, available from the subclient properties Content and Filters tabs respectively, define which mailboxes will be examined for archiving and which mailboxes/folders will be excluded from archiving.
The Exchange Mailbox Archiver Agent offers you the option to archive specific root-level mailbox folders (and associated subfolders) instead of the entire mailbox. Since subclient content for this agent is defined at the mailbox level, all mailbox folders are scanned by default and data contained within them are archived according to the archiving rules. This feature offers a solution for further refining the mailbox content that you want archived without the need to apply exclusion filters.
For example, suppose that you are only interested in archiving data contained within the Inbox folder and its subfolders, and you do not want to archive other root-level mailbox folders such as Deleted Items, Junk E-mail or user-created folders. You can easily accomplish this configuration by specifying the Inbox folder in the Archiving Rules. Otherwise, you would need to add all of the other root-level mailbox folders to the exclusion filter in order to archive just the Inbox folder.
For step-by-step instructions, see Specify Mailbox Folders for Archiving.
This option (applicable for Exchange Mailbox Archiver) can be enabled from the subclient properties Archiving Rules tab to check disk space when a mailbox is examined for archiving. The mailbox will be skipped if used disk space is lower than the watermark. The disk drive(s) to be checked are the drive(s) where mailbox databases are located.
| We do not recommend using only the Used Disk Space watermark as the sole criteria for archiving, as this could result in data being archived unintentionally. |
This option (applicable for Exchange Mailbox Archiver) can be enabled from the subclient properties Archiving Rules tab to check the Mailbox high watermark before a mailbox is scanned. If the mailbox used space is higher than the specified value, the mailbox will be scanned.
After the low watermark is met, the scan will be stopped for this mailbox. Mailbox watermarks are checked against the mailbox’s smallest quota among warning quota, stop sending quota, stop sending/receiving quota. If a mailbox’s quota is set to Use Default, the smallest quota of its database will be used. If there is no quota set at the database level, the mailbox will be considered as no quota set. It will be skipped unless the Mailbox Quotas option is unchecked.
This feature, available through the Outlook Add-In with the Exchange Mailbox Archiver Agent, allows users to add mail messages to the Archive List from their Outlook clients. These messages will be archived by the next archive operation on the Exchange Server.
This option, available from the subclient properties Archiving Rules tab, allows you to specify file extension(s) for attachments that you want included or excluded from archive operations regardless of the age/size message rules. Some points to keep in mind for filtering message attachments from archive operations are provided below:
The message rules available from the subclient properties Archiving Rules tab: minimal message age (in days) and size (in KB); messages older and larger than the specified values will be archived; and for the Exchange Mailbox Archiver Agent, there is a rule to Do Not Archive Unread Messages. The age of the message or item is determined by the message creation time, last modification time, send time or receive time--whichever is the latest. Also, there are two other options that modify how the message rules are applied. These are: Use either Age or Size rule, and Use Sent/Received time for Age rule. The Do Not Archive Unread Messages rule allows Exchange Mailbox Archiver users to specify that unread messages will not be archived even if these messages qualify for archiving under the Age and/or Size rule.
If selected, the body of any message that is archived will not be removed when the message is stubbed.
If selected, only messages that have attachments will be considered for archiving.
There are additional rules available relating to stub management and index creation that fall outside the hierarchy of how the archiving rules are applied. You can enable/disable the ability to preserve stubs until the media has been pruned, specify the minimum life of a stub, and specify how often you want to create a new index. Alternatively, you can specify that no stubs be created for data that is archived.
NOTE: Keep in mind that the new index creation interval can be overridden by the Create New Index option on the Advanced Archive Options (Data) tab, which is available when you are archiving data or using a schedule policy. If overridden, the new index interval counter will start again at zero.
The PST tab (applicable for the Exchange Mailbox Archiver Agent) provides a checkbox to enable or disable the archiving of PST files on the subclient. When enabled, the PST Location entry field allows you to specify the location of the root folder where the PST directories reside, which can either be on a local drive of the Exchange Server or on a network share connected to the Exchange Server. For PST archiving operations, all other archiving rules are ignored except for Do not create stub, so that all PST files associated with mailboxes in subclient content in the root folder will be archived.
Before performing any migration archiving procedures, review the following information:
Filters can be used in conjunction with the "Items That Failed" list on the data protection Job History Report to eliminate backup or archive failures by excluding items which consistently fail that are not integral to the operation of the system or applications. Some items fail because they are locked by the operating system or application and cannot be opened at the time of the data protection operation. This often occurs with certain system-related files and database application files.
After completing a PST archiving or recovery operation, ensure that the MAPI32.dll file is removed from the <Software Installation Path>\Base installation directory on the Client, otherwise non-PST restore/recovery/retrieve jobs for Exchange may go into a pending state.
| If selected, the Leave Behind Message Body option will override this registry key. |
The Exchange Mailbox Archiver Agent can use the Data Classification Enabler to facilitate selecting data for archive operations.
| If you enable the Data Classification Enabler for this agent, it is recommended that the next Exchange data backup that you run be a full backup. |
Including Disabled Mailboxes in Data Protection Operations
The Exchange 2000/2003 Mailbox iDataAgent, Exchange 2000/2003 Mailbox Archiver and Exchange 2000/2003 Compliance Archiver Agents do not back up or archive disabled mailboxes by default. However, if you would like to include disabled mailboxes in the data protection operations for these agents, you can add the nBackupDisabledMailBoxes registry key. Note that mailboxes marked as disabled in Exchange Server 2007 are disconnected by default and therefore cannot be archived or backed up.
The Exchange Public/Web Folder iDataAgents and/or Exchange Public Folder Archiver Agent back up/archive both local and remote folders on the Exchange Server.