White Paper. Solve Exchange Storage Problems Once and For All. A New Approach without Stubs or Links. By Bob Spurzem. April Mimosa Systems, Inc.

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1 White Paper By Bob Spurzem Mimosa Systems, Inc. April 2008 Solve Exchange Storage Problems Once and For All A New Approach without Stubs or Links

2 C O N T E N T S Introduction...3 NearPoint Shadowing...4 Mailbox Cleanup...5 NearPoint Quick Search...6 NearPoint Retention and Disposition...7 Conclusion...8 Mimosa Systems Inc Coronado Drive, Santa Clara, CA

3 Introduction The management of Microsoft Exchange storage growth is the most challenging problem facing Exchange administrators. Because of the popularity of as a communication technology, and because users tend to keep , maintaining adequate storage on the Exchange Server is a constant challenge. To deal with the storage problem, administrators have a couple of choices. They can delete , which is not usually an option because it violates compliance rules and regulations. Or they can move to backup tapes or offline PST files, which makes the data difficult to access and prone to data loss. Neither choice is very attractive. Storage Facts 1 In 2007, the average corporate user sent and received a total of 142 messages per day; 25 percent of these messages are sent with attachments. The average message size of a message without an attachment is approximately 25KB. Messages with attachments are typically much larger in size, averaging about 430KB per message. In storage terms, the average corporate user sends/receives about 17.7MB of data per day. This figure is expected to rise to more than 28.3MB per user, per day in For a company with 1,000 users, that is an average of 17.7GB per day, 88.5GB per week, or 354GB per month. archiving offers a solution for Exchange storage management. archiving solutions typically have a feature that removes and attachments from Exchange and replaces the and attachment with a stub file or link. Users retrieve the and attachment using Outlook with the assistance of an Outlook plug-in or Outlook Form that uses the stub to retrieve the missing piece from the archive. stubbing solves the problem of Exchange storage growth, but it causes a new problem. When Outlook contains thousands of items in each folder, users begin to experience slow and sluggish operation. 2 Nearly all archiving solutions exacerbate this performance problem when they place thousands of small stub files in Exchange. One archiving solution eliminates this problem Mimosa NearPoint for Microsoft Exchange Server. Developed and marketed by Mimosa Systems, an independent software company, Mimosa NearPoint is a next-generation archiving solution that captures complete Exchange data via Exchange Transaction Log Files and does not use Exchange journaling. Because NearPoint is based on a unique architecture, it offers a new solution for Exchange storage management. Using NearPoint, administrators can dramatically reduce Exchange Store size and retain full access, without stub files. In this paper we will see how Mimosa NearPoint can reduce Exchange storage and keep accessible to end users, without requiring stub files in Exchange. 1 Radicati Group, May

4 NearPoint Shadowing NearPoint is unique in the way it captures and uses Exchange data a process Mimosa refers to as Continuous Application Shadowing. When NearPoint is deployed, the first task it performs is to copy Exchange storage groups to NearPoint. This task is performed using the Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) Full Backup API. The ESE Backup API is the same API that tape backup products use to back up Exchange online. Once the full backup is completed, NearPoint begins a process called log shipping. Log shipping pulls Exchange Transaction Log files directly from Exchange Server and stores them on NearPoint. NearPoint replays the log files into the Exchange database files that are stored on NearPoint. Log shipping is a continuous process that performs 24x7, copying log files and replaying them off-host on NearPoint. Once performed, Continuous Application Shadowing has essentially stored a complete copy of Exchange onto the NearPoint archive. End users and auditors can access the NearPoint archive via Outlook (and OWA), and they can search and browse archive mailboxes using search tools provided by NearPoint. The following screen shot shows the NearPoint Browse screen in Outlook displaying an archive mailbox (Figure 1). Figure 1. NearPoint Browse Search Tool in Outlook The Browse view displays the entire archive mailbox with all of its folders and contents. You can clearly see how the archive mailbox is a mirror of the production mailbox. It contains all , folders, contacts, calendars, notes, tasks, deleted folders, and so on. Using the Browse view, users enjoy the same look and feel as they would in Outlook when viewing their Exchange mailbox. Users can access in the NearPoint archive just as quickly and easily as they would in Outlook. Because the Browse view is available, it is possible to remove and attachments from Exchange without sacrificing user access. No stub files are required. The Browse view is the secret to the NearPoint storage management solution. Without the Browse view, users would not allow their Exchange mailbox data to be deleted. The next section explains how Exchange mailbox data is deleted. 4

5 Mailbox Cleanup After successfully archiving the entire contents of the Exchange Server to NearPoint using Application Shadowing, the administrator can now use Exchange features to reduce mailbox size. Exchange and Outlook contain several features to perform the task. The one we will show is Outlook AutoArchive, but the same feature is also available from Exchange and can be performed as a group policy to affect all mailboxes, not just a single mailbox. The Auto- Archive feature is easy to use, as shown in Figure 2. Simply fill in the boxes and is instantly removed from Exchange. In this example, we use the permanently delete old items check box. We want to remove from Exchange, not put in a local PST file. AutoArchive is run manually or on a schedule (e.g., every 14 days), even when run as a group policy. This capability enables you to use AutoArchive to reduce mailbox size immediately and continue to groom mailbox capacity on a regular schedule. Auto- Archive removes only from Exchange; it does not remove from the NearPoint archive. All remains in NearPoint and is accessible from Outlook, and it can be restored back to Exchange if necessary. Individual , folders, or even the entire archive mailbox can be restored. This feature provides important flexibility if you want to reverse any change made by AutoArchive. You can deploy this AutoArchive strategy with confidence, knowing that its impact is reversible at any time. Figure 2. Outlook AutoArchive Screen Shot 5

6 I was captivated by Mimosa NearPoint the first time I saw it. It is so simple to use and it fits perfectly in our initiative to empower our users with more self-service capability to manage . The optimization of our environment with Mimosa NearPoint helps Virtual Health enhance the quality of patient care, improve clinical safety, meet regulatory requirements, reduce costs, and enhance employee productivity Tom Pacek AVP of Technology, Virtual Health NearPoint Quick Search In addition to the NearPoint Browse view (shown in Figure 1), NearPoint provides a Quick Search tool (Figure 3). Quick Search is available via Outlook (and OWA) in the same manner as the Browse search tool. Users enjoy Quick Search because it performs a full-text search of the entire archive mailbox with just one search. All , attachments, calendars, contacts, and so on are quickly searched. When the archive mailbox contains a year s worth of , for example, users find it easier to pinpoint with Quick Search and not have to rely on their memory to locate in a folder. Figure 3. NearPoint Quick Search Tool in Outlook Both the NearPoint Browse view and Quick Search are keys for a successful storage management strategy. If was removed from Exchange without a means of easily searching and viewing the archive , the strategy would certainly fail. Mimosa NearPoint is the only archiving solution that allows easy access to the full archive mailbox with a fulltext search or viewed in its original folder. Using NearPoint, users can view and open in the same folders as their Exchange mailbox. The only difference is that the folders are in the archive instead of in Exchange, but the difference is minimal since the folders remain in Outlook.

7 NearPoint Retention and Disposition The that is stored in the NearPoint archive is fully protected and is kept for an infinite period unless retention policies are defined. NearPoint provides standard retention and disposition policy management that supports detailed retention policies, which are administered automatically (Figure 4). NearPoint retention policies are defined per mailbox, per folder, and per message class. NearPoint distinguishes between that has been deleted and that has not been deleted but remains in a mailbox folder. For example, an administrator can configure NearPoint to keep all in a mailbox for five years, after which the is removed. This policy affects all in the mailbox and does not discriminate by deletion. In another scenario, the administrator can configure NearPoint to dispose of all deleted after 30 days. This policy keeps all in the archive mailbox for an infinite period and removes only the that the user has deleted in Exchange. In effect, this policy works like the Exchange Store deleted item policy. Figure 4. NearPoint Retention and Disposition Policy This retention and disposition policy makes the NearPoint storage management solution complete. in the NearPoint archive is managed automatically according to a retention and disposition policy that the administrator defines. Depending on the age of the , its deleted status, its folder location, or its message class, the archive can be perfectly managed. 7

8 Conclusion Microsoft Exchange administrators face the daunting challenge of maintaining adequate storage capacity and performance. Most available archiving solutions can reduce Exchange storage, but they incur the penalty of thousands of stub files in Outlook. Mimosa NearPoint presents a new, comprehensive solution to reduce Exchange storage, without using stub files and without sacrificing the end-user experience. Only NearPoint can reduce Exchange storage without using stub files. NearPoint shadows the entire mailbox contents and allows the use of Outlook AutoArchive to reduce Exchange storage, with no stub files. NearPoint provides powerful search tools that allow users and auditors to access archive with the same look and feel as Outlook. The NearPoint storage management strategy presented in this paper achieves the goal of massive Exchange storage reduction, without stubbing and without negatively impacting end users. Mimosa NearPoint benefits administrators by providing a solution for Exchange storage management that does not reduce Outlook performance. Users benefit by having powerful search tools that can search years of data and attachments in seconds. Management ease, flexibility, and huge storage cost savings are the outstanding benefits of the Mimosa NearPoint solution. Find Out More For more information about the Mimosa NearPoint File and Document Archiving Option and the entire Mimosa NearPoint solution for unstructured information, contact your Mimosa Sales Representative at (408) , or visit our web site at Mimosa Systems, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Mimosa, Mimosa Systems, and NearPoint are trademarks of Mimosa Systems Inc. in the United States and other countries. Other product names mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. 8