Implementation Guides

Managing an e-mail Repository

PCQ Bureau

07 Sep 2007 06:57 IST

New Update

Today each enterprise, irrespective of its size, deals with thousands of

e-mail on a daily basis. Most of these -mail contain essential business critical

information and data. The huge explosion of e-mail messages has prompted many

enterprises, to look beyond e-mail back-ups. A prime reason for the popularity

of e-mail archival applications is the explosion of email messages as well as

concerns about regulatory compliance and associated threats. Irrespective of

size and stature, each enterprise is subjected to have legal data retention

requirements. Most of the legal data is exchanged via e-mail. So, it becomes

essential to archive these business critical mails in such a manner that they

can be put forward within a stipulated period of time and without much fuss,

should a need arise. Failure to comply with such requests can lead to huge

losses for an enterprise.

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Benefits

E-mail archival helps organizations index, store and retrieve critical

e-mail and important file attachments in an automated manner. It records the

details and content of each mail sent or received by an organization in a

tamper-proof and auditable manner.

E-mail archival solutions help improve the performance of the e-mail server

by off-loading content from the production server. Archiving also helps users to

get access to business critical mails irrespective of their age. It eliminates

the need to create risky .PST/.NSF files and enforce consistent e-mail policies.

Archiving also ensures more free space and hence lower storage cost. One of the

main driving force toward archival of e-mails is compliance with statutory

regulations, as organizations need to provide access to regulators when asked to

do so. Another important factor is litigation support. In the traditional e-mail

archival system, where information is spread across several systems within an

organization, it becomes difficult to provide e-mails in support of litigation.

Some of the compliance regulations generally met by most e-mail archiving

solutions are: Sarbanes-Oxley Act 2002: Security and Exchange Commission (SEC);

HiPAA; and NASD.

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Best practices in e-mail archival
Following are some of the best practices that will reduce some implementation, maintenance and archiving concerns: Optimizing the archiving database: When e-mail archiving applications archive e-mail in a database, some of the tables of database require regular maintenance. They need to be serviced on a regular basis, as the table size might go beyond a threshold which will effect the performance of the archiving application. For this, you need to set the appropriate safety overhead and ensure that the suspect table can trigger a threshold alarm. Single data store: You should have a single instance store for archived file structure 'coz that's where actual data is stored. Since a large scale enterprise uses multiple servers, the archiving application is likely be able to run on these servers. So it's preferable to archive and index written data in a single instance store. High-availability of archiving application: Many enterprises use high-availability technique to keep their exchange environment operational. An archiving application may also require similar availability. Some kind of automated failover capability should be included in the archiving product to avoid any operational overhead. Automated load balancing: Load balancing is a critical requirement as multiple archiving servers support multiple exchange servers. Always look for this technique either through traditional middleware or within the archiving application, as manual load balancing is time consuming. Restructuring Index: Even under best environments, an index can get corrupted. When the corrupted index points to thousands of e-mail entities, a rebuild is very difficult. Some of the key issues to consider are, whether rebuild is transparent to users, whether exchanged operation is compromised, and also once index is rebuilt, do exchange or the archiving applications need a reboot. Reporting and metrics: Managing the archive is not an easy task. A comprehensive metrics component helps effectively administer the archiving environment. Backing up archived data: Two or three copies of archived data can be backed up till the media refresh threshold is achieved. An archiving application must allow backup of the top tier regularly, in the storage tier hierarchy. So the old archived e-mail moved down the storage tier, and the top ones, are backed up on a regular basis.

Best practices in

e-mail archival

Following are some of the best

practices that will reduce some implementation, maintenance and archiving

concerns:

Optimizing

the archiving database: When e-mail

archiving applications archive e-mail in a database, some of the tables of

database require regular maintenance. They need to be serviced on a

regular basis, as the table size might go beyond a threshold which will

effect the performance of the archiving application. For this, you need to

set the appropriate safety overhead and ensure that the suspect table can

trigger a threshold alarm.
Single data

store: You should have a single instance

store for archived file structure 'coz that's where actual data is stored.

Since a large scale enterprise uses multiple servers, the archiving

application is likely be able to run on these servers. So it's preferable

to archive and index written data in a single instance store.
High-availability of archiving application:

Many enterprises use high-availability technique to keep their exchange

environment operational. An archiving application may also require similar

availability. Some kind of automated failover capability should be

included in the archiving product to avoid any operational overhead.
Automated

load balancing: Load balancing is a

critical requirement as multiple archiving servers support multiple

exchange servers. Always look for this technique either through

traditional middleware or within the archiving application, as manual load

balancing is time consuming.
Restructuring Index: Even under best

environments, an index can get corrupted. When the corrupted index points

to thousands of e-mail entities, a rebuild is very difficult. Some of the

key issues to consider are, whether rebuild is transparent to users,

whether exchanged operation is compromised, and also once index is

rebuilt, do exchange or the archiving applications need a reboot.
Reporting

and metrics: Managing the archive is not

an easy task. A comprehensive metrics component helps effectively

administer the archiving environment.
Backing up

archived data: Two or three copies of

archived data can be backed up till the media refresh threshold is

achieved. An archiving application must allow backup of the top tier

regularly, in the storage tier hierarchy. So the old archived e-mail moved

down the storage tier, and the top ones, are backed up on a regular basis.

In-house or hosted

There are primarily two methods through which an enterprise can store and

manage archived e-mail. You can either have the functionality developed in-house

or use an off-site service, commonly referred to as 3rd party service. Most of

the large-scale enterprises prefer to have the functionality in-house, primarily

due to security concerns. They prefer to host the server themselves and manage

data completely within their own facilities. Hosting the facility in-house has

its own advantages in terms of accessibility, reliability and security, but

requires a heavy investment. Small-scale enterprises can make do by getting the

services hosted offsite. Here, an enterprise would just need to have a VPN

connection with the offsite service provider, and would not require to buy

software or additional servers. So, even though their IT team would manage the

archival of mails but they would be hosted on an external server.

GFI MailArchiver

This is an easy to use and powerful email archiving solution. Using GFI

MailArchiver you can archive internal and external e-mails to a central archive

store, which can be maintained via a Web-based configuration. Its working

functionality is very simple--GIF MailArchiver connects to the configured mail

server, collects all e-mail stored in the mailbox and archives them to the

active database configured. It requires both SQL Server 2000 (Service Pack 3)

and SQL Server 2005 along with Exchange Server 2003 or Exchange Server 2007.

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Implementation of GFI

The solution is simple to implement and use. After installation you need to

start GFI MailArchiver configuration in your Explorer. First, you need to

configure the location where you want to archive e-mails and whether you want to

exclude someone from the archiving process; which archive store you want to

store archived emails, etc. For these settings, go to the Configuration node,

under which you'll find various configuration modules. Users can define the

archiving option based on direction, such as inbound mail, outbound mail, and

internal mail. You can define whether you want to exclude some users or archive

e-mail of all users. You need to also mention the archive store where all

archived e-mail will reside. You can attach a GFI MailArchiver 3 database via

the archive store wizard. First give the name of the archive store, as this

helps you to manage the archive store and helps users of your network to select

the correct archive store to browse and search. Select the Microsoft SQL Server,

where GFI MailArchiver 3 database is stored, from the Microsoft SQL Server box.

Next, select the authentication method you want to use, be it Windows

Authentication or Microsoft SQL Server Authentication. For SQL Server

Authentication, you need to provide the user id and login details, whereas

Windows Authentication will show the credentials of the account displayed in

parenthesis.

GFI Mail Server also provides the option to hide certain archive stores from

users. So, if you want to keep certain very old e-mail away from the network

user, you can go to the 'archive store' option and then select the 'edit

setting' option available on the right panel, against the particular store name

that you want to hide. This will open the Archive Store wizard. Here, check or

uncheck 'allow user to browse and search this archive store' to make the archive

store visible or hidden to users respectively. Select Finish and save the

settings. You can view the statistics of an archive store such as database

creation date, database size and number of archived mails, etc by selecting the

'view statistic' tab available on right panel against the particular archive

store. Through GFI Archive Stores Management feature, you can set up a queue of

new archive stores that GFI MailArchiver will start archiving as per the

schedule you configured. You can also configure the search index update schedule

as per your convenience and control the lifetime of e-mail in the archive stores

based on their content, under the retention policies node. By default, an Active

Directory user can browse and search only through e-mail, but via Access Control

page you can configure the Full Access Group, Group Manager and User Access

control. You can give full access to an Active Directory group by selecting that

group under the Full Access Group tab. You can provide full access write to a

specific Active Directory group, by going to the Group Manager tab. Provide the

Active Directory user from the Manager list, in the 'Has access to Group' list

and provide the Active Directory user under the group specified in the Manager

tab.

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You can also configure and allowan Active Directory user to browse and search

through the e-mail of another Active Directory user, under the User Access

Control tab.

Key requirements for GFI MailArchiver
Component	Minimum Specification
Operating System	Windows 2003 Server, Windows 2000 Server
Processor	Atleast P4(or Higher) - 2GHz
RAM	Atleast 512MB
Free HDD space	Atleast 2GB
Software	.Net Framework 2.0, IIS, MS Internet Explorer 5.5 or later.

You can define the type of e-mail to be

archived, and whether to exclude certan users or guoups from archiving

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Configuring Mail Server

To configure the mail server to archive, you need to go to 'Mail Servers to

Archive' node and then select 'Add Mail Server.' This will open a Mail Server

wizard, where on the first page select Local Microsoft Exchange. Select 'Archive

e-mail from this server,' to archive e-mail. When you proceed to the next page,

it will list all the journaling mailbox available on the mail server. Select the

desired journaling mailbox from where you want to collect and archive e-mail.

Default journaling mailbox is ExOLEDB. You can also select IMAP and provide

necessary details such as server name, IMAP port, login and password, and

mailbox folder.

The Mail Server wizard will connect to the mail server selected and would

give you a summary of the entire configuration. Select Finish, to accept the

configuration. You can also select a remote Microsoft Exchange mail server by

clicking on 'Remote Microsoft Exchange/ Other mail server' option on the very

first page of the Mail Server Wizard. You can define the retention policies by

selecting the Retention Policy node and then selecting Add retention policy. It

will open a retention policy wizard. Here, provide the name of the retention

policy and select the check box against 'Retention policy in effect' to enable

GFI MailArchiver to check mails against this retention policy.

In the 'Subject Keyword' page, specify the list of keywords, so that if any

e-mail contains any of them, retention policy will apply. Similarly, you can

match the whole word by selecting 'Match whole words. You can categorize policy

by selecting the 'Categorization Policy' node. After naming the Categorization

policy, and after you have selected it, you need to specify keywords against

which the Categorization policy would apply.

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Overall GFI MailArchiver is an easy to implement e-mail archiving solution.

With its Web-based centralized access, you can easily track and quickly restore

old business critical e-mail.

Access Control tab allows you to grant full

access privilege to IT managers and also grant full access contril of a

particular group, to the group head

Symantec Enterprise

Vault 2007

It's a

software-based archiving platform that manages, stores and allows discovery

of business critical mails from the e-mail system, file server environments,

etc. It uses an intelligent classification engine to manage data, which in

turn ensures that an organization is able to retain and protect business

critical information without sacrificing on storage. Since not all data is

critical for an enterprise, the software utilizes intelligent classification

and retention technologies to capture, categorize, index and store data, and

enforce policies. It also has specialized applications such as Discovery

Accelerator and Compliance Accelerator that extract archived data to support

legal discovery, content compliance, knowledge management and information

security initiatives. This software also provides integrated content

archiving, a centralized solution that pulls corporate data from multiple

sources such as an e-mail system, PST files, file servers, Microsoft

SharePoint portals and enterprise content management solutions. Another key

feature is automatic mailbox management, which eliminates quotas and message

size restrictions and gives users a mailbox of virtually unlimited size

while maintaining the message store growth. It also enables faster backups

and improves disaster recovery and eliminates PST problem by migrating PST

files to a central archiving repository. This software has single point

administration and reporting, and comes with native support for IM

archiving.

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