Exchange Server 2010: Archiving and Discovery

Microsoft recently released Exchange Server 2010 RC1 to the public. While some minor things may change prior to the final release of the product, we can assume that most things will stay the same. The Exchange team has made a large investment into archiving, compliance, discovery, and data retention in this release, adding features such as:

• Archive Mailbox
• Granular Retention Policies
• Multi-mailbox search
• Enhanced transport rules processing
• Etc.

Several of the most important new features that are tied to archiving do not appear to be related, at first glance. These include changes made to the Exchange database itself. The database is called ESE (pronounced “easy”), which stands for Extensible Storage Engine. Due to changes in layout and architecture, the database engine has experienced a 70% reduction in input-output (I/O) operations when compared to a similar workload versus Exchange 2007. When compared to Exchange 2003, this reduction in I/O is over 90%!

The goal was to allow lower-performing SATA disk (that is, inexpensive workstation class disk drives) to be used for Exchange database storage. Microsoft was successful in this goal. This means that with Exchange Server 2010 it is now possible to have many times the capacity in cheap disk, as compared to the much more expensive SCSI and SAN disk that was previously required for good performance.

This will undoubtedly cause an explosion in mailbox sizes and in the amount of data to be backed up. Beware! Cheap disk will fail more often (in general) than expensive disk. Your backups and your email archives will be even more important now than they were in the past.

One of the changes to ESE that allowed for this reduction in I/O was to remove any dependence of one mailbox upon any other mailbox. In prior versions of ESE, that capability supported something known as SIS – Single Instance Storage. In brief, if a user sent an attachment to two other users that shared the same mailbox database, only one copy of that attachment was actually stored in the database – the recipient users had pointers to that attachment, which was placed into a shared storage area. In Exchange Server 2010, SIS is gone. Every user that receives an attachment has their own personal private copy of it in their mailbox. While Microsoft did add an offsetting feature (attachment compression), it may not be as effective as SIS was in some environments. In order to regain SIS in Exchange Server 2010, a company will be forced to use third party products.

The addition of Archive Mailboxes is also an interesting feature for Exchange Server 2010, albeit also a limited one. Given that it’s now considered OK to put Exchange databases on workstation-class disk, and that Standard Edition does not have any limits on mailbox database sizes, the need for PSTs has become less of a requirement. If you associate an archive mailbox with a primary mailbox, then you can load all of the PST data into the archive mailbox. The archive mailbox is backed up and restored along with the primary Exchange mailbox.

However, in a “what were they thinking?” – the archive mailbox is required to be in the same mailbox database as the primary mailbox. Therefore, you cannot segregate the storage requirements for archive mailboxes to be separate from the storage requirements for primary mailboxes. Also, you can only view the archive mailbox from within Outlook 2010. Down-level clients need not apply. Again, for storage segregation, a company will be forced to use third party products.

Finally for today, multi-mailbox search has been added and is fairly quick and the search criteria are pretty comprehensive. However, the output of the search goes to a destination mailbox and the search is always in batch mode. For real-time search, a company still must use third party products.

In summary, Microsoft has added a great deal of capability in the archiving, compliance, discovery, and data retention features available in Exchange Server 2010. However, for ease-of-use and for certain basic capabilities, a customer will still need to evaluate what is available in third party solutions.

Michael B. Smith. Exchange MVP The Essential Exchange

Outlook Start menu shortcuts

This is actually a Win7 and Vista tip with an Outlook angle. It works in older versions of Windows as well, but only with the QuickLaunch toolbar. (Outlook 2010 uses Win7's jump list capability for shortcuts for new items. )

A user asked this question: " I'd like to have a shortcut in my system tray or sidebar in Win 7 so I can create a new appointment without having to open Outlook 2007. Is this possible?"

I'll address the "without having to open Outlook" part first. Yes, you can have shortcuts to create new items but when you use them, Outlook will open in a hidden state. If you use an account that doesn't require you to log on, you probably won't notice it. But if you use an Exchange account that requires a password to access or password protect your PST file, you will need to enter the account information or password to use a shortcut while Outlook is closed.

To run a shortcut in the system tray or sidebar you need to use a utility (or a sidebar gadget). One tray utility that offers shortcuts for new items is Knockout. It works on Win7 and with all versions of Outlook, including Outlook 2010 x64.
Generally speaking (because they use no resources) its better to pin a shortcut on the Start menu, on Win7's Taskbar, or add a shortcut to the Quick launch toolbar. (Sidebar gadgets that access Outlook data are known to cause issues with Outlook not closing properly. )

Pinned items are just shortcuts in C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned. You can move or copy shortcuts from the quick launch folder to the pinned start menu or taskbar folders.
You can easily make your own shortcuts for new items using the following command line:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\OUTLOOK.EXE" /c IPM.APPOINTMENT

Change the path to Outlook to match your version and if you want to open other forms, change IPM form to any valid published form.

Or use another handy little utility from Jensen Harris called QuickIcons. This utility creates shortcuts for new Outlook item in the Quick launch folder for you. In Win7 and Vista, the quick launch shortcuts are at C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\ .


Knockout
http://sunflowerhead.com/software/knockout/ 

QuickIcons
http://sunflowerhead.com/software/quickicons/index.html 

Outlook Quick Tip: Hyperlinks & Folder names

We had a couple of questions this week about working with hyperlinks to files. In both cases, the users wanted to hyperlinks to files where the folder name included the # character.

This will always fail. While the pound sign is a valid character for a folder or file name, it is not a valid character for use in a hyperlink. In hyperlinks, it represents a bookmark in the document.

Exchange Quick Tip: Remove Mailbox Permission

The powershell command to remove full access permission for one account on all mailboxes in
a database is

Remove-MailboxPermission

For more information, see
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb125153.aspx