In my previous post I talked about the Exchange 2010 Archiving and Retention Tags.  This post continues on from that previous post.

In order to enable Archiving in Exchange 2010 the exchange administrator needs to be familiar with Retention Polices and Retention Tags.  My previous post talked about Retention Tags and how to create a retention tag focused on archiving data in the entire mailbox.  Once this Retention Tag has been created it will need to be linked to a Retention Policy.  Once the Retention Policy has been created it will need to be linked to a user or users who have archiving enabled on their account.  First let’s talk more about Retention Policies.

Retention Policies are use retention tags to apply to mailboxes.  You can have one or multiple retention tags applied to a Retention Policy which are then assigned to a user or group of users.  The retention policy can have the following retention tags:

• One or more RPTs for supported default folders
• One DPT of type All (this is typically the best option for archiving)
• Any number of personal tags

It should be noted that you cannot have more than one RPT configured for the same folder applied to a Retention policy.  This means that if you have one RPT called users configured for the inbox, and another RPT called Finance configured for the inbox, that these to RPTs cannot be assigned to the same Retention Policy. 

In order to create a Retention Policy the Admin will need to use the EMS.  The EMC is not supported for creating retention policies.  To create a retention policy we will use the New-RetentionPolicy command.  This command is pretty straight forward.  In order to create a new policy and link it to our RPT we created in the previous post we will simply type:

New-RetentionPolicy “Users-RP” –RetentionPolicyTagLinks “Users-RPT”

This command will give us a new Retention Policy called “Users-RP” and link it to our DPT we created in the previous post called “Users-RPT”.  We created the DPT in order to create a default policy to all folders capable of being archived in the user’s mailbox. 

Say for example we only want to create the retention policy but not assign any tags to it.  No Problem!  We can simply add retention policy tags at a later time.  (Note: It is not recommended to have blank retention policies in your exchange environment.  If you have an empty one it is suggested you link your RPTs to it sooner rather than later.)  Pretend in the example above we did not specify the –RetentionPolicyTagLinks command and just left the command New-RetentionPolicy “Users-RP”.  In order to add a RPT to a Retention policy type the following:

Set-RetentionPolicy –Identity “Users-RP” –RetentionPolicyTagLinks “Users-RPT”

If you like you can add additional RPT but separating them with a comma, i.e. –RetentionPolicyTagLinks “Users-RPT”, “More-RPTs”, “HR-RPT”     or whatever you would like to call them….

Once we have our Retention Policy we now must enable archiving for our users.  Locate the users you wish to enable for archiving using the EMC under Recipient Configuration and Mailbox, highlight their names and from the action menu select Enable Archive.  You will get prompted if you would like to continue and simply click Yes.  The user will now have an archive mailbox.  You will notice this because the icon will appear differently in the EMC. 

Once the user has been configured for archiving we will need to apply our Retention Policy we created above to the archive mailbox.  We can apply that retention policy by performing the following command:

Set-Mailbox “Username” –RetentionPolicy “Users-RP”

This command will then apply the Retention Policy we created above with the RPT we created in the previous post.  The user’s content of their mailbox will then archive anything older than 30 days.

Keep in mind that you can create multiple Retention Policies and Retention Tags for different business units in your organization.  Some may want to have a retention policy of 1 month (30 days), 3 months (90 days), six months (180 days), or a year (365 days), or ten years (3653 days).

So, once archiving is enabled we will now see a new archiving mailbox in our folder list.

Before Archiving:

After Archiving:

Now, you may be asking yourself “What!  I enabled archiving for the users but there is no content in the archive mailbox!”  Well, no worries friend!  This is because the Managed Folder Assistant has not run its scheduled maintenance.  By default this process will run between 1am – 4am daily.  This process will need to run prior to any items being archived into the archive mailbox.  The good news is this process can be ran manually.  Open your EMS and type “Start-ManagedFolderAssistant”.  Since this process runs on the Exchange Server, and the production mailbox and the archive mailbox reside on Exchange 2010 the users do not need to be logged in for the archiving to occur, unlike the old Auto Archive feature in Outlook!

So, now we have a mailbox folder list like below.  Note the additional folders created also appear in the Archive!

Once Archiving is in place we have to consider the Archiving warning quota and archive quota.  By default the archive warning quota and archive quota are set to Unlimited.  The trick to configuring these quotes is that we need to meet the user’s requirements.  Some users may need very little space for an archive while others need a great deal of space.  If you choose to leave the quota’s as unlimited then I would keep a close eye on your storage usage for the database because it can grow rather quickly as some users will keep everything.  If you do set the archive quota, once it is reached, messages will no longer be moved into the archive and a warning message will be sent to the mailbox user.  Either way, it can be difficult to determine the proper sizing for the archive.  Each user or department will likely have different requirements. 

Either way, to configure the warning and archive quota’s you should use the EMS.  The EMC can be used to configure the archive warning quota but not the archive quota.

To configure the archive quota and warning quota perform the following:

Set-Mailbox –Identity “Scott” –ArchiveQuota 2GB –ArchiveWarningQuota 1750MB

This will in essence give the user Scott an archive quote of 2GBs.  The system will issue me a warning once I get to 1.75GBs.  Again, the current setting is unlimited.  So if you have the disk space, or if the information archived is that important I would leave it at this setting and monitor your space usage.  The figures above are just examples, I am not saying you should set your archive quota to 2GB.  You can set it to whatever you like.  Keep in mind that the recommended DB size for Exchange 2010 is up to 16TBs.  You’ll be crazy to go that high, not to mention 2TB is the recommended max in a DAG and 200GB non DAG. 

Well, this concludes my posts on Enabling Exchange 2010 Archiving.  I hope you were able to learn something from these posts and thanks for visiting!

Next post will talk about disabling archive and what happens to an archive mailbox in that situation so stay tuned! Part 4 is now available!

Other Posts related in this four part series: Part 1, Part 2,