Email Trail (Full Version)

All Forums >> [Messaging] >> GFI MailArchiver for Exchange



Message

compsos -> Email Trail (4.Jun.2008 8:56:42 AM)

We are considering using GFI MailArchiver with our Exchange 2000 Server. We have under 20 users (a few heavy users) but overall less than 500 emails per day for all 20 users including internal mail. We plan to use the Firebird database-- although we own SQL Server 2000 it is not installed on our SBS200 Server.

We would like to understand the path (journal box, queues, database store, etc) the incoming/outgoing emails take once the Archiver is installed.

Can anyone point us to this technical information or provide a flowchart?

Thanks



netranger -> RE: Email Trail (4.Jun.2008 9:18:32 AM)

It's quite simply actually. You create a mailbox on your Exchange Message store that will be used for journaling then you enalbe journaling on your Exchange Message Store.

In the GFI configuration you create an IMAP connection to the journal mailbox and select your database type. You should be fine with Firebird. We use SQL 2005 because we do 6,000 - 8,000 messages per day.

Once the process starts GFI downloads email form the journal mailbox and places them in a queue located at c:\Program Files\GFI\MailArchiver\Core\Queue (by default) on the server where you installed GFI. From there the messages are imported into the database that you defined when you installed GFI.

TIP: place your index on a separate drive form your database. This will help with performance and searching.

We've been running GFI since January and we are very pleased with the product. To date we have archived around 250GB of mail without breaking a sweat.



compsos -> RE: Email Trail (4.Jun.2008 9:52:47 AM)

Thank you for the thorough explanation -we really appreciate it.

Question1: So all incoming & outgoing email goes to the journaling mailbox for all users?  If so, does that mean there is also a copy of the email in the user's mailbox within the Exchange Information Store as well...so it is duplicated?


Question2:We initially want to use MA to archive all email prior to a certain date. Amd then after a certain period of time -say 1 year, archive again. Will this be possible? If so, are those messages actually removed from the Exchange mailboxes to the journaling mailbox? That is, is there a copy left with Exchange or does all archived email just go to the Firebird database?

Question3:  How can we backup the Firebird database, especially once the initial archiving is completed? We currently have a tape drive with Yosemite Backup that is Exchange-aware.

Thanks!



compsos -> RE: Email Trail (4.Jun.2008 10:11:24 AM)

quote:

index


Also, how can we predict how much hard drive space will be required for the database and the index (es)?

Thanks



netranger -> RE: Email Trail (4.Jun.2008 10:33:58 AM)

I will try to answer your questions based on my experience with the product.

Question 1:
Yes, a copy of every single message that enters and leaves your Exchange server is sent to the journal mailbox then to the MA db. The original is sent to the user. This is what makes the product SOX compliant. This is also why journaling can put additonal load on your Exchange server. Monitor your server utilization to make sure you have room to take on the 10-20% increase in load that can take place once Exchange starts making a copy of every message. Once GFI downloads the messages from the journal mailbox those messages are purged from the journal mailbox. So if everything is working correctly you will rarely see any messages in the journal mailbox. 

Question 2:
MA is real time. You cannot go back and archive messages that have already been stored in your message store. MA will never delete message from your user mailboxes. The goal of MA is to capture a copy of every message for long term storage and compliance. Some organizations have to maintain electrionic documentation for 7 years. This is where MA comes in. It is not intended to keep your message store free from clutter. We have a 90 day policy where mail that has aged for 90 days is deleted. Users are instrcuted to reference the MA database for mail older than 90 days. This keeps our message store lean and allows users to quickly serach for old e-mail. You could start archiving everything using MA then use Exchange mailbox maintenance to periodically purge e-mail based on age or other criteria.

Question 3:
Haven't used Firebird but I do recall that you have to take it offline to back it up. Once offline it is simply a task of backing up the files associated with the db. When offline your jounal mailbox will accumulate messages but once your db is back online MA will download them all. I had an instance where the connection between MA and Exchange was down. There were thousands of messages in the jounal mb. Once the connection was restored it took MA just a few minutes to download the backlogged messages.

 



netranger -> RE: Email Trail (4.Jun.2008 10:42:46 AM)

We download the eval version of GFI and conducted a trial period. I think you get 45 or 60 days?? From this trial period we were able to extrapolate out what our storage requirements would be.

You should take a look at this knowledge base articles. One has a nice sizing tool.

KBID002912
KBID002939
KBID002978



compsos -> RE: Email Trail (4.Jun.2008 10:47:56 AM)

Thanks again for your replies -they were very helpful! We ended up posting separate questions in the interim just in case we lost you!

We are disappointed about the inability to archive previous old mail as we are trying to cleanup some mailboxes. We have read a few post regarding the PST export tool, exmerge, etc but not sure yet if these will help.

Thanks



AMacdonald -> RE: Email Trail (4.Jun.2008 11:00:53 AM)

We are in a process of importing PST files now. If you copy old mail to a PST file from a mailbox, you can themn import it to the archive. I've no doubt there are ways to import directly from mailboxes as well but we haven't investigated them.



netranger -> RE: Email Trail (4.Jun.2008 11:06:00 AM)

Excellent point. Forgot about PSTs. You could move mail to a PST then import that to GFI.

You could probably point GFI to any mailbox and import mail directly.



Page: [1]