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Exchange 2010 Archiving Part 4 – Disabling Archiving

Categories: Microsoft Related
January 28th, 2010 by Scott

In the first three parts of this four post series on Exchange archiving I talked about how to enable Archiving for Exchange 2010 using retention policies.  This last post will talk about disabling archiving for a user and what happens to the archived information. 

Disabling archive for a user is pretty straight forward.  In the EMC locate the user under Recipient Configuration, right click on the user name and select Disable Archive.  You will get prompted are you sure?  Click Yes. 

Once archiving has been disabled the user will no longer be able to see their archived folder in the outlook folder list.  Also, all the content that was in the archived mailbox just went away with the archive database after it was disabled.  What this means is that the data that was moved into the Archive mailbox has just went away.  No worries though!  If you check in the Disconnected Mailbox folder under Recipient Configuration you will see that the archive mailbox is now listed there.  I should point out if you look and don’t see the mailbox you may need to run the Clean-MailboxDatabase –Identity “DatabaseName”.  This will clean the database and drop the archive mailbox into the Disconnected Mailbox folder.  You can see that in the Disconnected Mailbox folder the archive mailbox will be listed.  There is actually a column in the folder that says Is Archive and the option is true or false.  If true, it’s an old archive mailbox.  If false, well, it isn’t!

So, now that we have located our disconnected archive mailboxes which contain data that the user archived in the past the question becomes, how do we get the data out!  Simple.  If you see the archive mailbox listed you can simply Right Click and select the option Connect to Primary Mailbox.  This will then connect the archive mailbox back to the user folder.  Keep in mind that disconnected mailboxes will reside in the Disconnected Mailbox folder for 30 days by default.  Anything beyond that you may have to recover from tape or another means.  Once the archive mailbox has been reconnected the user will be able to extract or add content from/to the archived mailbox.   

I should point out that if you disabled both the archive mailbox and the actual user mailbox the process above will fail.  Since the default mailbox has been deleted the archive mailbox cannot connect to the primary mailbox.  This can cause issues for an organization.  Say for example you need to get some data back that was archived and that user is no longer with the organization.  The users mailbox was deleted and now their archive mailbox can no longer be reconnected to the parent mailbox.  I also noticed that you cannot connect a disabled archive mailbox to another users account.  It appears that the archive mailbox can only be connected to the primary mailbox.  So, if you’re looking to get data from a former employee’s mailbox and/or archived mailbox you can either keep the original account and reactivate it or there is one other thing you can do if you’re stuck.  If you still have both the original users mailbox and the users archived mailbox you can connect the users mailbox to another AD account that does not have a mailbox.  Once this is completed you can then connect the archive mailbox back to the primary account mailbox which is now owned by the AD account you created!  This can come in handy in the event where you deleted the users AD account but still have the mail data.

Now that the archive mailbox is reconnected with the primary account one interesting thing I noticed is that archiving does resume, even when in Exchange I have archiving disabled for the user.  My only thought is because of retention policies that are applied to the mailbox are set to move data based on the RPTs.  So heads up! Just because you disabled archiving, if you reconnect the archive mailbox and the retention policy is still applied to the end user archiving will resume.  I could see this being a problem for some clients, so be wary!

If you would like to remove the retention policy from the user you can do so by performing the following command at the EMS:

Set-mailbox user –RetentionPolicy $null

I would suggest doing this for any user whom you decide to disable archiving for.  This will prevent additional items from accidently being dropped into the archive mailbox automatically after you reconnect the mailbox. 

This concludes my series on archiving in Exchange 2010.  I hope it will give you guys out there some good insight on what archiving is, how to enable it, and how to disable it. 

Thanks for reading!

Other Posts related in this four part series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

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Exchange 2010 Archiving Part 3

Categories: Exchange Server Microsoft Related
January 27th, 2010 by Scott

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:

BeforeArchive

After Archiving:

AfterArchive

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!

aftermanagedfolderassit

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,

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Exchange 2010 Archiving Part 2

Categories: Exchange Server Microsoft Related
January 26th, 2010 by Scott

In my previous post I talked about the Exchange 2010 Archiving and what it does.  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.

First let me start out on Retention Tags.  Retention Tags are used to apply retention settings to folders and individual items such as messages, notes, and contacts. These settings specify how long a message remains in a mailbox, and the action to be taken when the message reaches the specified retention age. When a message reaches the specified retention age, it’s moved to the personal archive, deleted, or flagged for user attention.  If you recall in my previous post there are five different actions that can be taken on a mailbox item when it reaches the retention age.  Again, those actions are: move to archive, move to deleted items folder, delete and allow recovery, permanently delete, or mark as past retention limit. 

Now when considering a RPT keep in mind that you can create RPT’s to the following default folders:

  • Deleted Items
  • Drafts
  • Inbox
  • Junk Mail
  • Outbox
  • Sent Items
  • RSS Subscriptions
  • Sync Issues
  • Conversation History

To note you can not include more than one RPT for the same folder type in one retention policy.  This means that if you have a retention policy with a RPT for the inbox, that you cannot add another RPT configured for the inbox to that retention policy.  You will need to create another retention policy and assign that RPT to that retention policy. 

The next type of Retention Tags is the Default policy tags (DPTs).  DPTs are created to apply retention settings to untagged mailbox items. Untagged items are mailbox items that don’t have a retention tag applied to them either by inheritance from the folder they are located in, or applied explicitly by the user. DPTs are created by specifying the type All. A retention policy shouldn’t contain more than one DPT.  The DPT gives the Exchange Admin the ability to specify a retention policy to all objects in the users mailbox (except Calendar, Contacts, Journal, Notes, and Tasks).  By specifying a DPT the admin is able to control all contents of the mailbox.  What about custom folders that users create in their Exchange mailbox you ask?  Well, those items can be archived as well!  While you can create a RPT to specify a default folder you can also create the DPT that will act as a default policy tag.  This default Policy tag will then perform the specified action assigned to the Retention Policy on all folders in the mailbox.  This even includes folders created by the user to store mail data, i.e. a client’s folder containing email only specific to that client either as a sub folder to the inbox or a new folder under the root. 

The final type of Retention Tag is the Personal tags.  Personal tags are retention tags available to users as part of their retention policy. Users can apply personal tags to folders they create or to individual items. For example, you can create a personal tag to allow users to tag messages that are business critical, that have a higher message retention age of three years, and use the MoveToArchive retention action to move the messages to the user’s archive mailbox after three years.

From the perspective of Archiving however the best course would be to use the Default Policy tags.  What the Default Policy tag will do is create a retention policy that is applied to all users assigned the Retention Policy.  Perhaps in your organization you are not looking for a default policy, but rather one that applies strictly to the inbox, that’s great, but when coming to archiving you want to get all folders possible.  Think from a perspective where you have users who create another folder for certain clients, or filter items in another folder based on a month.  If you simply apply a RPT to the inbox, those items will not be included in the archiving process and risk being lost.  The same idea can be applied to an area where you want to delete items after x days.  You don’t want to miss anything!

So, how do we create the new tag that will be later applied to a policy?  Well, in the effort to archive you will want to leverage the command New-RetentionPolicyTag.  Basically what this command does will create a new retention policy tag.   Anyway, in effort to archive everything in the mailbox that is possible you will want to use the following command at the EMS.  Please note, you cannot use the EMC to create or delete retention policies. 

The command to use is:

New-RetentionPolicyTag “Users-RPT” -Type All -Comment “Items older then one month will be moved to Archive” -RetentionEnabled $true -AgeLimitForRetention 30 -RetentionAction MoveToArchive

What this command will do is create a new RPT called Users-RPT.  The key to this is the –Type.  By specifying the Type “All” it creates a DPT which will then include all folders capable of being archived in the users mailbox.  Comment I simply added what this policy does.  For the Age Limit I added 30 days.  Keep in mind the default setting for this is setting is in days, not years or months.  Finally the action we have is MoveToArchive.  This will archive the content of the users mailbox to the users archive mailbox which by current standards is stored in the same mailbox database as the users production mailbox. 

As a result of the command we now have a new retention policy tag which is configured to archive all content in the users mailbox except Calendar, Contacts, Journal, Notes, and Tasks. J 

In my next post I will talk about the Retention Policy and how to connect the Policy Tags to the Retention Policy and apply it to users or a group of users.

To continue reading check out Part 3 of this series.

Other Posts related in this four part series: Part 1 and Part 4

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Exchange 2010 Archiving Part 1

Categories: Exchange Server Microsoft Related
January 26th, 2010 by Scott

One of the new features of Exchange 2010 is the ability to perform archiving on user mailboxes that reside on the Exchange 2010.  With the combination of Outlook 2010 users now have the ability to have a primary mailbox which will host their Exchange 2010 production data and an Archiving mailbox which will store mail items based on the users preference or organizational Retention Policies.  I say Outlook 2010 because as I write this Outlook 2007 is not able to support the users archive mailbox.  Microsoft’s idea on archiving is to reduce the number of items and the size of a users production mailbox thus improving the performance on that production mailbox, while the archiving mailbox will retain the users old mail and will have a slower level of performance users will still be able to be search for material.  The other benefit to the Archiving piece in Exchange 2010 is that it is included with Exchange 2010!  Basically small organizations will not need to buy another solution to perform archiving.    Please note however, that in order for a user to benefit from Exchange 2010 Archiving an Outlook 2010 Enterprise CAL is required. 

So, from a user perspective the way archiving works is that a user is presented with two mailboxes (similar in Outlook 2007 where a user opens their mailbox and another user’s mailbox in the folder list).  Their folder list has two mailboxes, their primary mailbox and an archiving mailbox.  The advantage to using the archiving feature is that now all legacy mail items are stored on the exchange server where they can be properly backed up and managed by IT.  The shortfall to the Microsoft version of archiving is that the users archiving mailbox is stored in the same database as the users production mailbox.  I have heard rumors that storing the production mailbox and archive mailbox in the same database will change in the future, but no time frame has been released for this.  Depending on what you’re using for a storage platform that archiving data could reside on expensive disk, which would rather be used for production data.  Another thing to note is that archiving does not support the calendar!  I actually found this rather surprising being that many people (including myself) will want to go back and look at their calendar to figure out what they were doing say a year ago.  While this data resides on the calendar in the production mailbox it would still be nice to off load some of this data to the archive. 

Now, going back to archiving, technically it can be considered records management.  The reason I say this is because an organization is managing what to do with the data stored in the users mailbox.  Records Management has a number of options that can be configured through Retention Policy Tags.  The data in the mailbox can be moved to archive, move to deleted items folder, delete and allow recovery, permanently delete, or mark as past retention limit.

The MoveToArchive action moves a message to the user’s archive mailbox. Messages are moved to a folder in the archive mailbox with the same name as the source folder in the user’s primary mailbox.

The MoveToDeletedItems action moves messages to the Deleted Items folder. This emulates the behavior experienced by users when they delete a message. Items in the Deleted Items folder can be moved back to the Inbox, or any other mailbox folder. Depending on the user’s mailbox settings in Microsoft Office Outlook Web App or Microsoft Outlook, the Deleted Items folder may be emptied when the user logs off Outlook Web App or closes Outlook. You can also create an RPT for the Deleted Items folder to take the required action on messages in the folder after a certain period.

The DeleteAndAllowRecovery action emulates the behavior when the Deleted Items folder is emptied or the user hard deletes a message. When this happens, and deleted item retention is configured for the mailbox database or the user, messages move to the Recoverable Items folder. The Recoverable Items folder, also known as the dumpster, provides the user another chance to recover deleted messages.

The PermanentlyDelete action permanently deletes a message. When this action is applied to a message, it’s purged from the mailbox. This action is like a deleted message being removed from the Recoverable Items folder. After this happens, the user can no longer recover the message.

The MarkAsPastRetentionLimit action marks a message as past the retention limit. Supported Outlook clients (Outlook 2010 and Office Outlook 2007) display messages that are past their retention limit using strikethrough text. Users who use a supported client notice the changed display and recognize the message as expired, and they can be encouraged to take further action, such as deleting the message or moving it to the archive mailbox. This action is intended to make expired messages noticeable, which encourages users to follow the organization’s messaging policies, and makes an action such as deleting the message unnecessary. This can be used as the initial step to create awareness about MRM.

Since I’m focusing on archiving I will stick with that angle.  I should point out however organizations like to retain items for legal reasons or like to delete items for legal reasons.  Either way the records management included in Exchange 2010 can perform both.

In my next post I will discuss the steps required to enable archiving.

To continue reading check out Part 2 of this 4 part series!

Other Posts related in this four part series: Part 3 and Part 4

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