unified email archiving - happiest minds · 2019-11-19 · third-party e-mail archiving solutions:...

Unified Email Archiving

© Happiest Minds Technologies Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

Unified Email Archiving Email Archiving feature, Enhancements and Products comparisons

By: Shishir Kulkarni

IMSS, Happiest Minds



The following are the acronyms used in this document with full descriptions.

Acronym Definition

EV Enterprise Vault

DC Data Center

DA Discovery Accelerator

CA Compliance Accelerator

FSA File Server Archiving

SDN Storage Delivery Network

DAG Database Availability Group

CAS Client Access Server

1. Abstract: Email has been the number one method of business communication for

years now. With attachments like PowerPoint, excel, word, PDF files and images, the amount of

disk space needed by email is increasing rapidly. E-discovery feature provides the possibility of

email storing and also the ability to retrieve those emails at a given moment of time. All the

while, new e-discovery guidelines make it more and more crucial not just to store messages, but

to have the ability to retrieve them at a moment’s notice. As a result, most of the companies in

the industry have been actively looking at the benefits of email archiving and consequently the

data retention and security.

Since organizations have been generating and sharing an ever-increasing volume of information

through E-mail, the ability to protect and preserve such critical information is essential. Whether

our impulse is to improve storage management, meet regulatory requirements for data

retention, or lower the costs of conducting electronic discovery (e-Discovery); implementing an

effective automated e-mail archiving and discovery solution will offer a number of benefits.

The importance of e-mail archiving

o Multiple businesses are turning to archiving when it comes to storing old messages

instead of holding years of emails and messages in primary storage such as an email

inbox or on a disk.

o Along with E-Discovery there are many more benefits available with the use of an

automated email archiving system compared to physical and manual archiving

processes.

o The cost saving benefit is also the one of the key reasons why organizations are moving

towards an automated archiving system.

o Archiving often involves a more complicated indexing system which allows files to be

found quickly and compactly stored.



Key reasons for deploying a comprehensive solution for archiving e-mail can be summarized as follows:

Optimizing storage management to lower costs

Complying with industry and regulatory data retention requirements

Streamlining discovery processes to ease the burden of responding to legal orders

2. An approach to e-mail archiving with Exchange 2010:

Recognizing the importance of deploying an effective archiving and discovery solution, Microsoft has

delivered new, integrated e-mail archiving, retention, and discovery capabilities with the release of

Exchange Server 2010. These built-in features are designed to help us preserve and discover the e-

mails without any intervention of either user or administrator. The following figure explains the

integrated e-mail archiving features of Exchange Server 2010.

Exchange 2010 built in feature to provide archiving options can be utilized in a scenario where we have

sufficient storage assigned with the Exchange LUNs. For Exchange archiving, we need to have archiving

policies defined on an organizational level or folder level. Based on the policies defined, we can enable

archiving for the respected mailbox. By doing so, secondary mailbox (archive mailbox) will be created for

the same mailbox which will host only archived data. Hence users can access archive mailbox and

primary mailbox separately or together with primary mailbox in outlook or OWA. Following figures

illustrate the scenarios of keeping archive mailbox on same database and on different databases

respectively.

Note: As a best practice, we should not create archive mailbox and primary mailbox in the same

database. It is always better to have a dedicated database for all archive mailboxes.



3. Third-party e-mail archiving solutions:

The built-in archiving and discovery capabilities in Exchange 2010 are unable to address various business

needs like retentions, security, seamless access and discovery features,. Hence, most of the

organizations started looking over the third party products to achieve extended business goals of

archiving. Following sheet provides a feature wise comparison of different archiving products:

Email Archiving - Features Comparison among different Vendors

Symantec HP EMC Vault

Requirements / sub Weight

Comment Enterprise Vault

Autonomy Simpana

Data Retention period

Must be based on country regulations. Must yes yes yes yes

Regulations vary per country. Tools should support this.

Must yes yes yes yes

Data should be deleted after the retention period ends.

Must yes yes yes yes

Override Possible Must yes yes yes yes

Archiving threshold

Describes the period of time after which mail is moved from mailbox to archive.

Yes yes yes NA

Answers vary from 2 months to 2 years. 1 Year Goal to archive data older than 1 month to 1 year

yes yes yes yes

Once archiving tool is operational mailbox quotas will be removed

Ease of use

Offline copy of (personal) archive Could Must if tool has no web based access

yes yes yes yes

Optional offline copy of (personal) archive (encrypted)

Must Unless OS is encrypted

yes yes yes no

Should be accessible via Outlook client Must yes yes yes yes

Optional via Outlook Web App (two factor authentication)

Could yes yes yes yes

Easy to access archive and retrieve data (transparent for user i.e. stubs)

no stubs Partial, search yes, browse no, stubs

yes yes yes

Access archive via mobile devices Could yes, third party yes to be determined

yes

Criteria should trigger archival Age Must yes yes yes yes

Mailbox size We prefer age and size both

yes yes yes yes

Manual user action Could yes yes yes yes

Automatic process Must yes yes yes yes

Technical capabilities



Archive out of GroupWise/Domino Should no yes no possible

Import PST files Must yes yes to be determined

yes

Import GroupWise/Domino archives Could no yes no possible

Crawl network for archives Could yes yes to be determined

yes

Support for virtual servers Must yes yes, index server not recommended

yes yes

DE duplication Should yes yes yes yes

Active Directory Integration Could yes yes yes yes

Move users archive Could From one server to another

yes yes to be determined

yes

E-DiscoveryExport dataset from archive based on criteria

Must Based on industry standards

yes yes yes yes

Automatic alerts based on keywords not a requirement

Won't yes yes to be determined

yes

Single search over live data and archive (cloud)

Could yes yes to be determined

yes

Per client per fiscal year Won't yes yes to be determined

yes

Index for faster search Must yes yes yes yes

Availability

Highest possible figure without redundancy to be determined

Support HA Should yes yes to be determined

yes

Backup

Restore time is important

Solution on storage level is preferred (object based storage)

yes yes yes yes

Copy of data offsite Must yes yes to be determined

yes

Geographical distortion

Central archive if speed permits & support is available 24/5


yes

Central archive and multiple regional archives


Cloud storage is a possibility Yes with (dependencies)

yes to be determined

NA

Search all servers in one go Could yes yes NA yes

Security If data is stored outside, Data encryption should be available

Must yes, third party yes yes yes

Private key with an organisation Could yes yes to be determined

yes

Dual key access to E-Discovery capabilities Must prefer AD Integrated

no dual key, but AD integrated

no Risk involved

yes

Miscellaneous

De archive a user Could yes yes to be yes



determined

Browse through archive Should yes yes to be determined

yes

Multiple storage tiers Could yes yes NA NA

Challenges users need to change their working nature and adopt the new changes

Send large files via alternate systems

Training should be provided to users

Exchange is not a DMS

How to handle shared mailboxes Must Support for multiple users


yes

Auditability

Who has access Must yes yes yes yes

Who has accessed what, when from where Must yes yes Third part involvement

yes

Functionality Grant access to archive former employee to predecessor

Must yes yes to be determined

yes

Grant access to archive colleagues’ i.e. similar to mailbox possibilities

Must yes yes to be determined

yes

Key: MUST: Describes a requirement that must be satisfied for the solution to be considered a

success. SHOULD: Represents a high-priority item that should be included in the solution if it is

possible. This is often a critical requirement but one which can be satisfied in other ways if strictly necessary. COULD: Describes a requirement which is considered desirable but not necessary. This will be

included if time and resources permit. WON'T: Represents a requirement that stakeholders have agreed will not be implemented in

a given release, but may be considered for the future.



4. Why Symantec E- Vault

Looking at the differences between HP, EMC and Symantec Vault, we feel that the major differences

between these vendors are minimal. Out of these vendors; Symantec E vault is cost effective and

provides many more features along with high availability and integrated indexing system. Also Symantec

E-vault is a very stable product and is user friendly.

Technical and Business front benefits of Symantec E vault are explained below.

MS Exchange support:

Symantec E Vault enables an Exchange organization to store messaging data automatically in centrally-

held archives. Using E Vault archiver, users can retrieve and archive selected items easily and quickly.

This process simply moves archived items to EV database and, leaving a shortcut in its place to represent

the mail item.

Using Enterprise Vault we can address the following things:

o Improved performance of email systemo Enriched search function due to integrated indexingo Stagnant exchange storage and condensed storage issueso Access to user’s archived emails. Easy to manage access delegation like normal mailboxeso Seamless access to old emails and high availability of data through internet and mobile deviceso Journaling feature to maintain accountability of every email throughout the organizationo Flexible searching and accessibility of archived data and adherence to data security

Novell GroupWise support:

The existence of a GroupWise connector in Symantec E vault to import all Novell group wise data to

Symantec E vault database is faster and easy. Also creating GroupWise PST files and importing into

Exchange database through e vault is very much possible with negligible impact to end user. Hence it is

better to import & merge GroupWise user’s PST to Symantec e vault once their mailboxes are moved to

Exchange 2010. E vault architecture by default supports the migration of Novell GroupWise to Exchange.

Lotus Domino server support:

The Enterprise Vault Domino Gateway provides the interface between Lotus Notes and Enterprise Vault. Hence archiving items from Domino mail files and journal databases is streamlined. Symantec E vault architecture by default helps the migration of messaging system from lotus Domino to Exchange. This is a huge advantage for the organizations that want to migrate from Lotus domino to Exchange over the common platform with email archiving facility and high data security.



Share point support:

Symantec E vault provides integrated solution for SharePoint which helps to archive documents that are held on Microsoft SharePoint servers. We can use Enterprise Vault to archive documents from servers running on any of the following:

o Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010o Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS 3.0)o Microsoft SharePoint 2010o Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007)

Enterprise Vault automatically copies documents from the SharePoint server and stores them in SharePoint archives. Consequently shortcuts will be created on the SharePoint server. If we are using exchange 2010 and SharePoint configured with Symantec E vault archiving, it is easy and up-front to maintain centralized database for both technologies and this way we can integrate SharePoint with Exchange 2010.

File Server support:

We can configure Enterprise Vault File System Archiving (FSA) to archive files from network shares. Users can then access the archived files using shortcuts in the original locations, Archive Explorer etc. Following are the benefits of Symantec E vault FSA.

o It is easy to archive fileso Through archiving policies we can trigger the archiving taskso Files that are archived are indexed; hence they can be searched fastero Data retention and E discovery features provide data security and seamless accessibility based

on the archiving task and policies configuredo Immediate reduction in space usage

End User support:

The look and feel of Symantec E vault shows that it is so integrated into Outlook that the end user does not see much of a difference rather than an icon that looks different. Based on policies and tasks, old emails & larger attachments will be automatically archived to free up space of mailbox. It also helps in faster retrieval of the archived email and a message informing that the email is archived. Advanced indexing option allows users to search the archived emails quickly and easily. Option to access archived emails over the phone and internet provides high availability of data even when users are not connected to the organization network.



Verdict

Basis the fact that various technologies can be integrated together in a single product with multiple

features, Symantec E vault appears to be the most preferred product for medium and large scale

organizations for security and data archive.

Moreover, Symantec E vault is cost effective and stable in functionality which has made it the first

choice for most organizations.

5. Understanding Enterprise Vault:

Symantec Enterprise Vault for Microsoft Exchange provides a cost effective and centralized administering approach to efficiently manage the Exchange storage via automated and policy-controlled archiving for active retention and seamless retrieval of messages and attachments. With Enterprise vault, we can eliminate mailbox quotas and message size restrictions, giving users a mailbox of virtually unlimited size.

E Vault integrates with both Outlook and Windows Desktop Search to provide search features from a common, familiar search tool which helps Outlook users to click, drag, search & retrieve archived email from outlook just as they would do with live email from the Exchange Server.

Using Enterprise Vault with MS Exchange allows:

o Access to other user’s archived emails and high availability of data through mobility featureo Enterprise-wide search to locate, collect and migrate PST files into the Enterprise vaulto Optimized single-instance-storage; efficiently stores information by maintaining just one copy of

a file or message which significantly reduces the total archive sizeo Seamless end user experience—Symantec E Vault is designed to provide seamless accessibility

through user’s existing tools (Outlook, OWA,Windows Mobile, etc.), giving visible access toarchived data anytime and anywhere

o Simplified installation and administration—provides centralized administration with dashboardsfilled with best practices to get E Vault up and running with easy day-to-day management

o Discovery Accelerator provides a more powerful and efficient search capability to help lower thecost of data collection and to facilitate the search and recovery of archived items

Note: Enterprise Vault 10.0 introduces the Nirvanix Migrator that allows us to migrate archived data to

the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network (SDN) in the cloud. We can now use the Nirvanix SDN as

secondary storage to migrate infrequently accessed data over the cloud.



6. Benefits of Symantec EV Archiving for MS Exchange 2010/2013:

1. Manageable Mailbox Sizes - Keeps Exchange mailboxes at manageable levels with age based

and quota based archiving policies. Users get seamless access to the archive presenting email as

if it were a PST, without the management or headaches associated with PST files.

2. Anytime, Anywhere Access - Seamless access to archived email and archived PST files while

offline, within Outlook Web Access (OWA), and on mobile devices.

3. Tiered Storage - Automate the movement of information to the right storage tier, for the right

amount of time based on value, age, and size - even place files for long term retention on tape

or WORM storage for compliance.

4. DE duplication everywhere - Introduces efficient single instance storage to Exchange to reduce

storage resources, whether in remote offices or in the data centers across the archive and

backups.

5. Improve Migrations and Upgrades - Move older items out of Exchange and into Enterprise Vault

to reduce the size of Exchange message stores by up to 90%. The reduction in the size of each

message store allows you to move email to Exchange 2010 much faster, providing a reduction in

the cost and time required for the migration process.

6. Consistent Policies -Comply with regulations & information governance policies by consistently

applying retention & expiry policies to email. Hence no need to keep it any longer than required.

Since E Vault is closely integrated with AD structure, it is easy to manage policies and administer.

7. Web interface and Mobility: Publishing Enterprise vault services over the internet will allow

users to access archive mailboxes over the internet even on mobile devices any time anywhere.

8. Recover Faster - Reducing the active message store size by archiving means less data to restore

in the event of a disaster. E Vault can Restore the entire Exchange servers to any recovery point

in time or individual Exchange items within minutes.

9. Find Information Faster - Enable end users to search across live and archived email with native

Microsoft Outlook or Windows desktop search tools while giving legal teams the tools to search,

discover, review and implement legal holds with no IT dependencies.

10. Manage More Data with Fewer Tools - Information management doesn't stop with email and

allows us to centralize backup and archiving processes while applying the benefits of

deduplication, retention, and expiry.



7. Comparison of MS Exchange v/s Symantec E Vault archiving:

Comparisons of Symantec EV archiver & MS exchange internal archiving features.

S No Item Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Symantec Enterprise Vault 1 Archiving Targets Exchange Server Exchange Server, Lotus Domino,

Novell GroupWise, SharePoint Server File Servers…..

2 Bitness Exclusively 64bit EV10: 64 bit with 32bit index readability

3 Prerequisites Server side

Less software dependencies SP1 to store primary and secondary mailboxes in separate databases

More software dependencies (incl. SQL Server) Support for E2K10 from SP1 onwards

4 Prerequisites Client side

OWA 2007/2010 Outlook 2007 with latest RU (less features) Outlook Professional+ Edition.

Outlook Add-in

5 Integration #Seamless integration, both client and server side; pst-like #No stubs #Mailbox search and conversation view work across both mailboxes

#Training required for both Administrator & user about technology & infrastructure. #“Stubs” & Archive Explorer look different to the end user. #"Virtual Vault" looks just like a pst. #Can plug in “Managed Folders" & "Journaling" features on Exchange Server.

6 Offline Archive support None Vault Cache

8 Storage #DAS (incl. JBOD) or SAN #Exchange databases: 1)- primary and secondary can be separated 2)- Mgmt tools don't make any distinction between mailbox and archive database.

Lots of choice incl. special options like WORM

9 High Availability Database Availability Group "Building Blocks”, Windows Failover clustering, Veritas & Symantec Cluster Server

10 Provisioning Static: per mailbox - Operational procedures- Scripting Agent ->Script: PowerShell- Dynamic-Scheduled script: Set-MailboxDatabase -IsExcludedFromProvisioning $True

Static: per mailbox - Operational proceduresScript: EVPMDynamic "Granular Provisioning" (query based):- Group, - OU, - LDAP Query,- Entire Exchange Org

11 PST Migration Microsoft Exchange PST Capture Integrated

13 Migration One major version can be skipped

In-place upgrades not supported → "swing migration"

#No major version can be skipped (!) #In-place upgrade supported. #Need to pay attention to compatibility both for client and server side software

14 Cost #Enterprise CAL’s (Client Access License) required for every user enabled for which “Personal Archive" feature has been enabled. #Possibly additional server licenses & hardware depending on the design chosen

#License required for every active user mailbox. #Additional hardware to buy Training and/or helpdesk calls

15 Cloud O365: Exchange Online Archiving (EOA) EV.Cloud (mail only!)



8. Enterprise Vault architecture for MS Exchange 2010:

Symantec E vault is completely integrated with Exchange 2010. However; Exchange 2010 introduces a number of architectural changes including DAG and Client Access Server (CAS) proxying for clients. To support the DAG architecture the Exchange 2010 Client Access Server is used to proxy all client connections to CAS servers through MAPI (RPC over TCP). Clients no longer connect directly to the Exchange Mailbox servers. The following diagram explains how the Exchange 2010 client connections are being terminated at the CAS servers.

The following diagram shows how the Exchange Server 2010 client connections are being proxied by the

CAS server to EV server. User sends requests to EV through CAS which acts as an interface for these

service requests. EV server in the background is integrated with AD of the domain and operates on

mailboxes as per the rules and tasks defined. It will serve the client requests by fetching data from the

SQL database.



To host EV server for the Exchange server along with SQL servers, we should have met the below listed

hardware and software requirements. The listed specifications are subjected to 1 EV server setup per

site.

Hardware:

• EV Server: 6 cores, 24 GB RAM (DA can be hosted on the same EV server)

• SQL server:4 cores,8 GB RAM

• Storage and Backup tapes required as per data capacity

Software:

• EV 10.0.1 sp2 server.(OWA extensions,CA,DA comes along with this package)

• MS SQL and windows installable with license

• VMware Vsphere or hyper V license

• Licensed Backup software

• Antivirus software and license

Having the archiving set on age & size of the message yields better utilization of EV archiver & exchange

storage. A policy based on utilization of mailbox should also be configured by defining storage quota for

all mailboxes.

EV 10.0.1 version contains Enterprise Vault server, OWA extensions, A and CA as a package. This version

comes with 64 bit indexing. Hence only 64 bit OS and Exchange 2007 sp3 and higher are required to

integrate it. EV can also be integrated with OWA and mobile devices for advanced business

requirements.

Note: EV 10.0.1 still supports 32 bit indexing for read only process. But new indices will be created only

with 64 bit.



9. Conclusion:

o We have tested that E vault 10.0.1 is compatible with Exchange 2010 Sp2 and SP3.

o E vault configured on VM’s is fully supported. We have tested with VMware Vsphere 5.1 & 4.1.

Symantec recommends installing E vault server on VM.

o E vault is also supported on Hyper V platform, though we have not tested it as fully operational,

but Symantec confirms and recommends that VM platform is completely supported.

o SQL server hosts EV database instances. MS SQL server 2005 sp2 and 2008 are compatible with

E vault 10. This has been tested and confirmed.

o Symantec backup exec and Veeam backups are much integrated for backup and restore of

archive stores. We have tested and confirmed that E vault server supports both these backup

products.

o Any antivirus on OS level security is compatible with E vault, preferably, Microsoft forefront

protection, MacAfee and Symantec AV.

o Symantec recommends high speed storage device for Index locations and DB log shipping. For

optimum performance, EV, SAN, DAS and NAS are suggested for storage purpose.

Please go through the following link to understand detailed compatibility matrix of E vault:

E-VAULT COMPATIBILITY MATRIX

Sources

This white paper highlights features and enhancements of email archiving over MS exchange 2010 and other archiving products with reference from the following sites:

Wikipedia Symantec Email-archiving Symantec Enterprise Vault features Alfa BBT blog-Comparison of Exchange archiving and EV archiving

About Happiest Minds Technologies:

Happiest Minds, the Mindful IT Company, applies agile methodologies to enable digital transformation for enterprises and technology providers by delivering seamless customer experience, business efficiency and actionable insights. We leverage a spectrum of disruptive technologies such as: Big Data Analytics, AI & Cognitive Computing, Internet of Things, Cloud, Security, SDN-NFV, RPA, Blockchain, etc. Positioned as “Born Digital . Born Agile”, our capabilities spans across product engineering, digital business solutions, infrastructure management and security services. We deliver these services across industry sectors such as retail, consumer packaged goods, edutech, e-commerce, banking, insurance, hi-tech, engineering R&D, manufacturing, automotive and travel/transportation/hospitality.

Headquartered in Bangalore, India; Happiest Minds has operations in USA, UK, The Netherlands, Australia and Middle East.

To know more about our offerings. Please write to us at [email protected]

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/resources/sites/BUSINESS/content/live/TECHNICAL_SOLUTION/38000/TECH38537/en_US/compatibility_charts.pdf

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unified email archiving - happiest minds · 2019-11-19 · third-party e-mail archiving solutions:...

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