Exchange Mail

Background

Today's businesses, large and small, rely on their email systems to a significant majority of their communication needs. Email has evolved from a rudimentary technology, inaccessible used only for technology lovers to its current role as a rapid, reliable communications tool for almost everyone. Along the way, as user needs and data storage have changed – remember when 1 MB of storage is a great thing? – The use of email systems has grown far beyond its original scope of sending and receiving short messages. E-mail systems today provide calendar, group collaboration, task management, workflow, and increasingly more and more, archive and data storage. Now users stored for many years worth of email and attachments, and refer to them frequently important historical information.

This increased retention of documents, e-mail systems along with the increasing size of attachments, has caused a dramatic increase in size and therefore greater demand for technical and managerial capacity. Meanwhile, the email content has increased in value – often to be sensitive, proprietary or mission-critical in nature. It is essential that today's businesses protect their investment email and the systems associated with document retention and archive policies. An effective policy balances the needs of security and system stability with user needs, including quick access.

During the years of work with our clients, Seitel Systems has developed a set of best practices to address these complex needs. The following are recommendations for the preservation and archiving in Microsoft Exchange Server.

Group Policy Templates

Whether Outlook Auto Archive is used to manage mailboxes, the outlook for the group policy template should be used to centrally control settings (including or not the file is allowed). The configuration information is available below.

Outlook 2007: Outlk12.adm Outlook 2003: Outlk11.adm

Exchange 2000 Environments Exchange 2000 is limited in the amount of available storage to 16 GB (17 GB for short-term repairs). As a result, SSL is recommended that these organizations apply mailbox management policies as follows:

1. Mailbox size limits: 500 MB or smaller depending on the overall size of the organization. Smaller organizations may have larger mailbox limits. This must be accomplished via mailbox quotas enforced by Exchange Server. As users approach their quota to receive warning messages to that effect. Once they reach the quota will be restricted to send and receive emails.

2. Outlook Email Archive Auto must be configured for all users to run with the following values:

Enable Auto Archive: Yes

Run AutoArchive every day: 7

Prompt before AutoArchive runs: No

Delete expired items: No

Archive or delete old items: No

(note: this is a corresponding adjustment to the policies of email retention and expiration dates, not the deleted items folder)

Show archive folder in the Folder List: Yes

Clean out items older than: Never

Permanently delete old items: No

(note: this is a corresponding adjustment to the policies of email retention and expiration dates, not the deleted items folder)

3. File folders should be stored at the following locations:

· Workstation users must file a PST file is located in the network.This runs the risk of file corruption, MSFT discourages the use of a network share for the automatic filing of email but the alternative solutions (such as local file) implies increased risk of data loss due to disk or issues. Search back up the Microsoft support site to find the article kb/297019 for support.

· Users of laptops must file a PST file is on your local hard drive. A manual process will be necessary to copy these PST files to the network on a regular basis (minimum weekly) to ensure they are supported. SSL recommend placing a recurring appointment in the user's calendar.

A manual process is required for all users, ensuring that individual PST files do not exceed 2 GB in size. The frequency of this process depend on the rate of send and receive email, but should be checked at least annually. SSL recommend placing a recurring appointment in the user's calendar.

Exchange 2003 environments, Exchange 2003 is limited in the amount of storage available to 75 GB. This storage space is more than likely to be consumed by small undertaking, but for companies that approach this limit SSL recommends the following solutions:

· Update to Exchange Server 2007 with nearly unlimited storage space. This is the most likely solution for companies with older hardware, or just want to take advantage of the features of 2007.

• Adding a second mailbox store on the server and migrate existing Exchange mailboxes for storage load balancing. This solution requires available disk space and the remaining useful life of the server hardware.

Due to the large storage space and the inherent complexity of SSL archive files not recommend applying size limits or inbox self-archiving policies, except for laptop (mobile) users. The prudent management of their user mailboxes are promoted through the elimination of non-essential, especially emails with large attachments which need not be archived. Outlook Group Policy template should be used to prevent users from enabling Auto Archive in your mailbox.

Mobile users with large mailboxes will experience significant performance degradation when operating outside the office LAN. Cached Exchange Mode or files offline storage are not recommended as they are limited to 2 GB file size, in addition to their required time synchronization can be painful when done through a WAN connection (broadband or no). Mobile users to SSL recommends:

1. Outlook must be configured to use RPC over HTTP to allow safe access to the Exchange server when the laptop is connected to the Internet

2. To maintain performance at an acceptable level is recommended that mobile users need to keep their mailboxes under 500 MB in size. This could be accomplished via mailbox quotas enforced by Exchange Server.

3. Auto file should be enabled for mobile users to run quietly every 7 days and file information to a PST file is on your local hard drive. A manual process will be necessary to copy these PST files to the network on a regular basis (minimum weekly) to ensure that they are supported. SSL recommend placing a recurring appointment in the user's calendar.

4. A manual process is necessary for mobile users so that individual PST files do not exceed 2 GB in size. The frequency of this process depend on the rate of send and receive email, but should be checked at least annually. SSL recommend placing a recurring appointment in the user's calendar.

Exchange 2007 environments, Exchange 2007 offers nearly unlimited storage limited only by available hard disk space. As a result, SSL does not recommend applying size limits or inbox file auto policies, except for laptop (mobile) users.The prudent management of their user mailboxes are promoted through the elimination of non-essential, especially emails with large attachments which need not be archived. Outlook Group Policy template should be used to prevent users from enabling Auto Archive in your mailbox.

Mobile users with large mailboxes will experience significant performance degradation when operating outside the office LAN. Cached Exchange Mode or files offline storage are not recommended as they are limited to 2 GB file size, in addition to their required time synchronization can be painful when done through a WAN connection (broadband or no). Mobile users to SSL recommends:

1. Outlook must be configured to use RPC over HTTP to allow safe access to the Exchange server when the laptop is connected to the Internet

2. To maintain performance at an acceptable level is recommended that mobile users need to keep their mailboxes under 500 MB in size. This could be accomplished via mailbox quotas enforced by Exchange Server.

3. Auto file should be enabled for mobile users to run quietly every 7 days and file information to a PST file is on your local hard drive. A manual process will be necessary to copy these PST files to the network on a regular basis (minimum weekly) to ensure that they are supported. SSL recommend placing a recurring appointment in the user's calendar.

4. A manual process is necessary for mobile users so that individual PST files do not exceed 2 GB in size. The frequency of this process depend on the rate of send and receive email, but should be checked at least annually. SSL recommend placing a recurring appointment in the user's calendar.

Links:

The configuration information for retention settings available in: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc303413.aspx (Click on "configure retention settings).

Outlook administrative template is located in the Office Resource Kit can be downloaded from: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/desktop/default.aspx. The different versions are available at Home -> Versions link.