Applying Information Lifecycle

Management to E-mail Messages

Mailbox Management Deployment and Implementation
Recommendations for Microsoft Exchange

Abstract

The purpose of this white paper is to assist EMC customers who are deploying EmailXtender for
messaging mailbox management. To achieve successful mailbox management, several principles must be
understood so that an effective corporate messaging policy can be defined, implemented, and followed.
These principles are explained in depth so that an EmailXtender deployment can deliver its greatest benefit.

9/28/2007

Copyright 2007 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without
notice.
THE INFORMATION IN THIS PUBLICATION IS PROVIDED AS IS. EMC CORPORATION MAKES NO
REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND WITH RESPECT TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PUBLICATION,
AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE.
Use, copying, and distribution of any EMC software described in this publication requires an applicable software license.
EMC2, EMC, where information lives, Centera, CLARiiON, EmailXtender, EmailXtract, and Symmetrix are trademarks or registered
trademarks of EMC Corporation. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. All other brand names
are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

H3394.1

Applying Information Lifecycle Management to E-mail Messages

Table of Contents

Executive summary ............................................................................................ 4

Introduction ......................................................................................................... 4
Messaging information lifecycle management................................................. 5
E-mail mailbox management.............................................................................. 5
Corporate document retention policy........................................................................................... 6
E-mail capture ............................................................................................................................ 12
E-mail management................................................................................................................... 14
Policy enforcement .................................................................................................................... 17
Optimizing the messaging archive storage hierarchy................................................................ 18
Client/end user communication and education.......................................................................... 19

Specific deployment recommendations ......................................................... 19

Frequently Asked Questions ........................................................................... 23
Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 26
Appendix: EmailXtender terminology definitions .......................................... 27

Applying Information Lifecycle Management to E-mail Messages

Executive summary
Information management technology that streamlines information access and supports richer collaboration
with colleagues drives operational efficiency and increases competitive advantage for businesses.
Nevertheless, recent market events have shown that a laissez-faire approach to the use of this technology
carries with it substantial costs and risks.
As a result, corporations are beginning to create policies that define what information should be kept and
how long it should be retained within information systems such as e-mail. Government regulations, the
desire to minimize costs associated with legal discovery, and the need to reduce the operational expense of
storing and maintaining large volumes of electronic information drive this trend.
Updates to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) in December 2006 make it clear that organizations
must be well-prepared for eDiscovery in any federal litigation case. Companies with complete e-mail
archiving solutions will be able to take advantage of Rule 37(f) which provides for a safe harbor from
sanctions, provided that the organization has acted in good faith when information has been deleted through
the normal business operations of automatic e-mail deletion. For more information please see the
EmailXtender and the New Federal Rules of Civil Procedure solution overview.
Further, messaging systems have replaced the traditional file cabinet, which creates just as many challenges
as opportunities for businesses. Today, EMC EmailXtender enables users to automate the lifecycle
management of information within their Microsoft Exchange messaging system. The use of EmailXtender
as a mailbox management system provides customers with substantial financial benefits. These benefits can
be maximized when EmailXtender is used to automate an information lifecycle management (ILM)
approach to enforcing corporate records retention policies.

Introduction
It wasnt so long ago that all information within a corporation was touted as an asset, which should be
stored, maintained, protected, and used by co-workers forever. While technically this can be done, it is an
objective that would be expensive to achieve and challenging to maintain while creating unnecessary
corporate liabilities. Effective information management policy aims to ensure that the right information is
kept for the appropriate timethus leveraging information when it is valuable and disposing of it when
prudent to do so. It is increasingly clear that businesses that do not adhere to a consistent information
lifecycle management policy (for electronic and paper records) run the risk of increased costs and
liabilities. Messaging mailbox management must be part of this policy.
The recent release of Microsoft Exchange 2007 has led some to believe that e-mail archiving is no longer
necessary. While Exchange 2007 does incorporate new features that make e-mail capture easier than in
previous versions, the product does not deliver the benefits of a complete e-mail archiving solution.
However, when paired with a complete e-mail archiving solution, the new features in Exchange 2007 assist
in accelerating the benefits of a consolidated central archive, storage management, regulatory compliance,
and legal discovery.
The purpose of this paper is to assist EMC customers who are deploying EmailXtender for messaging
mailbox management, in a Microsoft Exchange environment. To achieve successful mailbox management,
several principals must be understood so that an effective corporate messaging policy can be defined,
implemented, and followed. At that point, the implementation of EmailXtender will deliver its greatest
benefit.

Applying Information Lifecycle Management to E-mail Messages

Messaging information lifecycle management

Today, the majority of internal and external business communication is conducted via e-mail. The fact that
we are dealing with electronic documents (e-mail and attachments) enables us to introduce a level of
automation into the ILM process. An effective ILM policy specific to e-mail mailbox management can be
reduced to six key areas:

Corporate document retention policy definition

Message capture

E-mail management

Policy enforcement (a.k.a. clean up process)

Messaging archive solution optimization

Client /end-user communication

We will note when special circumstances, which go beyond the scope of mailbox management, may have
serious implications on other aspects of your business.

E-mail mailbox management

Effective e-mail mailbox management ensures that end users have access to Microsoft Exchange objects
such as messages, attachments, calendar items, and contacts while balancing the preservation of
information with the reduction of content stored on Exchange servers. For many reasons, the most
expensive place to store Exchange objects is within the Exchange system.
For users, their assigned mailbox has replaced the paper file cabinet for storage, while the messaging
system has become a reliable, fast, and convenient communication method. No wonder we see e-mail
traffic exploding exponentially. Conversely, from the business perspective, the storage required to house
the content sent through messaging systems is costing corporations an enormous amount of money.
Protecting the data and keeping the messaging systems operational 24 x 7 also has significant cost
implications.
As a solution, mailbox management addresses the increasing challenges of e-mail storage growth and the
end users desire to maintain easy access to aged content. An effective e-mail mailbox management
solution insures seamless access to aged data for end users, while lowering the costs associated with
primary e-mail system storage. As a result, support and maintenance costs are reduced by:

Allowing aged content to reside on less expensive secondary storage while freeing high performance
primary storage resources in the current mail environment.

Enabling healthier e-mail systems as reduced message stores optimize message database maintenance
routines

Reducing backup and recovery times through smaller Exchange databases

Reducing the quantity of backup tapes and its associated cost

The six steps to mailbox management are:

1.

Corporate document retention policy definition

2.

E-mail capture

3.

E-mail management

4.

Policy enforcement

Applying Information Lifecycle Management to E-mail Messages

5.

Optimizing the messaging archive storage hierarchy

6.

Client/end-user communication and education

While corporate document retention policy can be very broad and comprehensive, for purposes of this
paper we will focus on e-mail document retention.

Corporate document retention policy

Typically, the corporate general counsel defines the organizations document retention policy guidelines.
General counsel determines policy by working with management to strike a balance that enables a
maximization of business productivity while mitigating risk and reducing costs. While use of the messaging
system is convenient for users, the privilege of use granted by the corporation creates several IT challenges
and associated costs to the business. Therefore, corporate document retention policy must govern the
balance between:

Extending the business benefit of the messaging system as a data storage repository (in other words, an
electronic file cabinet).

Associated IT costs to the corporation, including:

Maintaining a 24 x 7 communication and storage system
Impact to fileserver storage costs when users approach the policy-defined end of life of their
message mailbox or PST utilization

Mitigation of potential risks and liabilities of non-business critical information

Additional factors to consider in the definition of the document retention policy:

Definition of functional areas or select business user groups such as:

Executives
Management
General population users
Users subject to regulatory review
Users under investigation (regulatory or legal)
Special/exception users

Definition of how long user groups will have access to certain types of corporate information.
Note:
Different document retention policies will likely govern different user groups
IT will define how long messages and attachments will reside on specific tiers of the messaging and
archive storage systems (in other words, when to shortcut) as part of their service level agreements
(SLAs)

Define how long certain types of corporate information will be retained (when to clean up/destroy)

E-mail lifecycle definition

The e-mail lifecycle from a users perspective consists of two primary elements:
a.

How long users will have access privileges to stored objects

Applying Information Lifecycle Management to E-mail Messages

b.

The response time associated with gaining access to stored objects

Corporate policy will define the length of access privileges and IT will define response time based on cost
and operational considerations. The effects of this policy will establish the basis for the SLA between the
user community and IT.
Where an e-mail or attachment resides should be determined by how frequently the e-mail will be accessed.
The more frequently the content is accessed, the more desirable to have that content located nearest to the
user (this would be the high performance disk storage containing the Exchange data stores). Content that is
less frequently accessed should be located on the lowest cost (and appropriately lowest performance)
archival storage layer.
For an individual user, the importance of e-mail access significantly reduces as e-mail ages. Typically email is accessed frequently only during the first few days or weeks of its lifecycle. After 30-90 days of age,
most e-mail is rarely accessed. Organizations typically wish to retain e-mail data at this point due to:

Regulatory and corporate compliance requirements

Legal requirements

User access convenience and efficiency

The chance that an end user will access a particular message after one or two years is very low. Typically,
messages of this age must be accessed for litigation discovery. Messages and shortcuts of this age are
usually removed from the Exchange environment, being retained only in the archive until the scheduled
destruction date.
Once removed from Exchange, the messages are still accessible directly from the archive using a query
(advanced search) feature of EmailXtender. The EmailXtender search feature may be provided to users if
desired either as an Outlook plug-in or via a web browser.
The diagram below shows typical access recommendations for e-mail across a three-year lifecycle.

Direct mail server access (0-180 days)

Archive access via e-mail shortcuts (181 days to 2 years)

Historic message query via archive (0 days to 3 years)

Destruction (30 days after end of lifecycle)

E-mail Access

Email Access
Method

180

550

365

30

Exchange Server Access

Outlook Shortcut to EmailXtender

EmailXtender Archive Query

End of Life

Applying Information Lifecycle Management to E-mail Messages

Determining mailbox management policy

Due to the differences in an organizations e-mail access trends, there is really no one size fits all
approach when determining mailbox management policies. Some organizations may choose to provide the
most aggressive Exchange database reduction possible, while some may favor a less aggressive approach
that allows users to access e-mail directly from the Exchange server for a greater period of time.
Regardless of the approach, it is generally recommended that all shortcutting of e-mail messages be applied
gradually in stages to date ranges and user groups. Depending on the current Exchange environment (in
other words, age of data residing in Exchange) typical stages of implementing the shortcut policy are as
follows:
1.

Initial shortcut policy taskall e-mail messages greater than five years (1,825 days) of age

2.

Incremental shortcut policy tasksperform follow up shortcut policy tasks of messages greater than
4.5 years (1,642 days), then 4 years (1,460 days), then 3.5 years, 3 years, etc down to a task of greater
than 180 days.
Note:
The most important aspect to consider when setting up the shortcutting task is determining how
long the task will run. It is recommended that the task be divided into manageable increments so
that it can be completed in a reasonable amount of time. An operational user impact review should
be conducted prior to beginning another task.

This stepped method mitigates two issues associated with mailbox management:
1.

Overhead required on the Exchange server to process the shortcuts (in other words, replacing actual
messages and attachments with shortcuts)

2.

End-user acceptance of any latency associated with retrieving shortcut messages

In order to determine exactly how much data will be removed from the Exchange environment, the EMC
EmailXtract utility may be used to gather aged data statistics. This data can be leveraged to provide the
best possible starting point for beginning the shortcut process. For explanation of Exchange analysis
capabilities, see the Data Gathering section.

Effects on enterprise systems and personnel

Exchange systems
One of the primary reasons to implement e-mail mailbox management is to increase the operational
efficiency and performance of the Exchange system. Upon reducing the size of the Exchange message
store, expected operational benefits include:

Reduced backup time of the Exchange Message Store

Reduced recovery time of the Exchange Message Store from the backup system

Improved efficiency of standard Exchange Message Store maintenance routines

Increased up time of the Exchange system

Applying Information Lifecycle Management to E-mail Messages

Personal archive files

In order to effectively manage e-mail data, Personal Archive (PST) Files management must be considered.
PST e-mail storage can impose a significant amount of risk to an organization. PST storage is widely
unmanaged, resulting in e-mail data that has fallen outside of an organizations retention policies.
PST files have long been the only method of reducing the storage requirements of Microsoft Exchange
systems. As a result, most organizations have a sizable amount of storage associated with PST files. Most
organizations are trending toward PST elimination in favor of one consolidated archive that can be
managed more effectively. A consolidated archive also helps insure efficient storage management through
message de-duplication and data compression.
PST files are a very inefficient method of storing e-mail. Each PST is an independent message database.
There is no concept of single instance storage provided within PST files. EmailXtender supports single
instance e-mail storage, thereby offering the opportunity to greatly reduce the storage requirements of an
organization.
In order to effectively implement a PST management policy, PST files must have the associated e-mail
imported into the archiving system. Unfortunately, due to the nature of PST storage, this is typically a timeconsuming process.
Considerations for PST management/elimination:
1.

Locating PST files

PST file location can be provided through one of two methods.
1.

PST files may be selected from a known location via a network browse function within
EmailXtender. Once selected, items matching the task definition may be imported to the central
archive

2.

PST files may be auto-discovered using a newly added feature in EmailXtender. This functionality
will allow a crawler technology to locate existing PST files on servers and workstations
throughout the network. These PST files may then be selected for import to the archive.
Depending on the range of network resources queried for PST discovery, this process can be time
consuming. It is suggested that this be performed in a phased approach. Smaller ranges of queries
will complete in a more timely fashion.

2.

Identifying ownership of PST files

In order to provide complete end-user access to the e-mail contained in imported PST files, the e-mail
must be identified as being owned by a particular user. EmailXtender will perform an analysis of the
e-mail contained within a PST and suggest a logical owner for the PST. Final determination of
ownership is the responsibility of the IT staff performing the import. Options include accepting the
suggestion of the EmailXtender utility, selecting another user id from the Exchange Global Address
List, or manually assigning ownership. The diagram below shows the option available for manual
ownership assignment.

Applying Information Lifecycle Management to E-mail Messages

PST ownership determination is a time-intensive process, but the methodology employed by

EmailXtender will help insure that PST files are not misidentified. Selection of PST files for ownership
determination should be performed in manageable groups/batches.
3.

Importation of PST data into the central archive

Upon PST discovery and ownership determination, PST files are ready to be imported into the
archiving system. EmailXtender currently imports messages from PST files directly into the archive.
Access to imported e-mail is gained via EmailXtender search options.
EmailXtender also provides functionality to allow for PST folder structure and shortcuts to messages
to be placed into the users Exchange mailbox. This will insure a familiar look and feel for the end
user.

4.

PST lockdown and elimination

PST lockdown capability (in other words, post-process options) is also supported in EmailXtender.
The following screen capture is a list of the new lockdown features. It allows the organization to not
only import the PST data into the archive, but also lock it down to prevent users from continuing to
add data or even access the PST. Options for locking down PST files are:
a.

Mark as Read Onlyprevent additional data from being added

b.

Hide PSTMark PST as hidden via file system attributes

c.

Move PSTMove PST file to alternate location to prevent user access

d.

Delete PSTDeletion of PST file

Applying Information Lifecycle Management to E-mail Messages

10

5.

End-user education
End-user education regarding PST elimination is a minimal process. The end-user folder structure is
relocated to the users mailbox so users simply open a User Defined Folder within Outlook instead of a
Personal Folder. Look and feel for the user remains the same.

File shares
It is expected that the file system space contains an enormous amount of files that were originally sent
through the Exchange system and later saved to user desktops or file servers. There are usually two primary
reasons for saving attachments to the file system space:
1.

Reducing the size of PST files to reduce PST file corruption

2.

Reducing the users storage consumption on the Exchange server due to mailbox storage limits as
designated by IT

EmailXtender can significantly reduce the amount of file storage consumed throughout the enterprise
through the process of de-duplication. In short, if users find access to attachments via the messaging
archive system to be easier than their current file system access method, your organization will receive
additional benefits from the reduction of file system storage consumption and its associated data protection
costs.

Applying Information Lifecycle Management to E-mail Messages

11

Protection systems
When developing an ILM strategy, it is important to understand how the destruction of information in
accordance with corporate document retention policy will be accomplished from all systems. As an
example, the data retention policy for data resident on backup tapes must be either shorter or the same as
the retention policy governing the archive system.
The objective is to create a systems management procedure that enables an automated destruction process
to occur each month based on adherence to corporate document retention policy.

E-mail capture
The e-mail archiving capture process can be accomplished through realtime capture, schedule-based
capture, user-based capture, or a combination of all three.

Realtime capture
Realtime capture insures that an organization has a complete record of all e-mail sent or received by the
organization. With realtime capture, a single copy of all e-mail passing through the e-mail server is
submitted to the archive. EmailXtender enables realtime capture via the native Exchange Journaling
capability. EmailXtender provides for efficient bandwidth utilization by determining both message
uniqueness as well as message archive eligibility prior to retrieving the complete message from Exchange.
The diagram below details the process of message retrieval from the Exchange server.
EmailXtender
Server

EXmailbox
(MAPI Connection)
Get MSG ID

Exchange
MTA

Duplicate?
(Check SQL DB)

Exchange
Journaling

Delete Msg
from Journaling
Mailbox

Delete Msg
from Journaling
Mailbox

N
Record-keeping
copy

Policy Verify?
(user list)
Y

Journaling
Recipient
Mailbox

MS-Exchange Server

Get Msg

Add to SQL DB

Delete Msg
from Journaling
Mailbox

Queue for
- Unpack
- Archive
- Index

Applying Information Lifecycle Management to E-mail Messages

12

Schedule-based capture for existing/historical e-mail

Schedule-based capture enables the EmailXtender administrator to develop tasks within the EmailXtract
component to archive only e-mail items meeting specific criteria. Multiple archive and shortcut tasks are
typically defined to accommodate the requirements of the corporation. Criteria used to determine which
messages are archived may include:

A specific user

Select or exclude distribution list

Selected mail server(s)

E-mail age (older than/newer than/exact date range) based on received or modified dates

E-mail content (subject, attachments, size)

Folder-based (inbox/sent/drafts/deleted/user-defined)

Item type (e-mail messages, calendar items, appointments, tasks, etc.)

User-based capture
EmailXtender also gives end users the option of selecting messages for inclusion in the archive. Through
the use of User Directed Archive (UDA) folders, users can declare messages as important business records
and simply drag and drop them into folders in an Outlook menu that have pre-defined retention policies.
This method of capture can help reduce the amount of non-business-essential messages in the archive and
can also be used to replace PST files. UDA folders can enable legal hold functionality where messages are
subject to ongoing litigation. Depending on your business needs, some considerations for deploying UDA
folders include:

Storing project-specific e-mails that should be stored in a central project archive folder

Identifying important messages which are considered business records that users may want to retain for
an extended period of time

Collecting and preserving content for legal holds

Providing an alternative to personal archives stored locally in the form PST or NSF files

Applying Information Lifecycle Management to E-mail Messages

13

E-mail management
Access methodology
Traditional
Traditionally, users have accessed e-mail within their e-mail client interface using either one of two
methods:

Manual searchwithout the use of technology to automate the search process, the users default
search capability is reduced to manual browsing of their inbox folder structure looking for the desired
content. This method is the slowest and most time-consuming search method, which relies heavily on
the users memory to determine where to look.

Mail client search Outlook provides an advanced search capability within the Outlook client
interface. This client search capability does not scan the content of attachments. Unfortunately, the
result set does not always accurately reflect what the user is trying to find. The search function also
utilizes the microprocessor of the local client machine, which slows down the performance of the
system and other applications that may be in use. While this is an automated way of searching for
messages, it has limitations.

Advanced search using EmailXtender

EmailXtender provides an optional advanced search feature enabling high performance and efficient access
capability. Users are able to use Boolean logic to search for archived e-mail (for example, AND, OR, NOT
operators) to enable search results that reduce the result set to enable faster access to desired content.
Example:

search for all mail from John Smith

between January 1, 2005 and February 20, 2005

containing text Orange NOT Juice in the body of the e-mail or attachment

EmailXtender performs a full-content index of e-mail and attachments at the time of e-mail capture. This
pre-processing is what enables the user to search against an index system and obtain a result set very
quickly. Frequently-used search criteria can also be saved for future search tasks.

Access privileges
End user
By default, users are given access privileges to e-mail in the archive that was either sent to or from them.
Super user (legal/HR/IT)
The administrator of the EmailXtender system has the ability to define different access privileges for
special users. As an example, general counsel may want access privileges to all users e-mail in the
corporation in order to search across all mailboxes in the archive and discover specific content for litigation
proceedings. Note that all access and searches of this nature are logged for corporate security purposes.

Applying Information Lifecycle Management to E-mail Messages

14

Message shortcuts
Effect on Exchange
Message shortcutting allows organizations to reduce the amount of storage required for Microsoft
Exchange by replacing items residing in the Exchange database with shortcuts (links) to the archive.
Transparent user access is still provided via Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Web Access (OWA)1.
Shortcutting can benefit the organization by:

Allowing for a virtually infinite mailbox

Reducing the overall size of the Exchange database

Offering better performance and greatly reduced backup/restore windows for the mail server

Providing a higher degree of stability for the messaging system

Shortcut process
EmailXtender allows an organization to define multiple shortcut policies across their Exchange
environment. Shortcut policy may be applied to messages with attachments or all messages. Policy options
for shortcutting are identical to the options described earlier in the section Schedule-Based Capture for
Existing/Historical E-mail. Policies (tasks) may be developed to meet organizations diverse needs based
on any combination of the following parameters:

Specific user

Specific distribution list

Specific mail server

E-mail age (older than/newer than/exact date range) based on received or modified dates

E-mail content (subject, attachments, size)

Folder-based (inbox/sent/drafts/deleted/user-defined)

Item type (e-mail messages, calendar items, appointments, tasks, etc.)

Shortcut processing may be manual and scheduled. Schedule-based processing may occur daily, weekly, or
monthly according to the organizations needs.

With the release of Exchange 2007, Microsoft dropped support of the web forms development model. EMC
EmailXtender 4.8 and many other e-mail archiving products rely on Microsoft web forms for OWA shortcut resolution. As a
result, OWA Shortcut resolution with EmailXtender 4.8 SP1 does not work with Microsoft Exchange 2007.Microsoft is
adding support for web forms in its service pack release due out in November 2007.

Applying Information Lifecycle Management to E-mail Messages

15

Shortcut retrieval process flow diagram

Applying Information Lifecycle Management to E-mail Messages

16

Shortcuts and end-user impact

Impact to the end user may be minimized based on two primary factors:
A. The type of storage utilized by the archive
The greater the latency of the archival media, the greater amount of time required to retrieve the
shortcut item by the user. The use of disk-based storage technology such as the EMC Centera
technology storage device drastically minimizes the latency associated with shortcut retrieval.
Virtually no noticeable latency is associated with this type of configuration. In our experience, robotic
storage devices that add latency to retrieval/access times are not appropriate storage devices for active
archives unless the proper SLA is established with the user community.
B. The aggressiveness of the shortcut policy
Our recommendation is to begin the implementation of the shortcut policy with an objective of
achieving a start date of e-mail older than 12 months. Initially, this policy will have minimal impact on
user access to e-mail within the archive. After monitoring the impact on user access, we recommend a
gradual reduction in the age of e-mail retained within the Exchange message store. The objective
should be to store messages in the Exchange message store that are within a creation range of six
months. While a more aggressive shortcut policy may be desired, impact to user access must be
balanced with these business objectives.

Policy enforcement
Once corporate retention policies are defined, EmailXtender can notify the system administrator what
information in the archive is eligible to be deleted based on age. By design, EmailXtender will not
automatically delete any information from the archive. The destruction of information must be a manual,
intentional process each month, which ensures that information relevant to any electronic discovery
investigations is not deleted.
It is possible for relevant information to be searched and copied from the archive into a transportable file
(in other words, PST) that is relevant to any electronic discovery requests and then deleted from the
archive.
General guidelines for archiving policy enforcement:
1.

2.

Communicate the archiving policy and service level agreement to the end-user community. Tell
them what will happen throughout the information lifecycle process.
a.

When are messages copied into the archive?

b.

How long will messages be retained within the archive?

c.

How long will users have access to messages within the Exchange system?

d.

What performance characteristics can a user expect during different stages of the ILM
process?

Understand what users are inclined to do when trying to work around the archiving policy.
Common user actions are:
e.

Copy attachments to local or network file system space.

Applying Information Lifecycle Management to E-mail Messages

17

f.
3.

Create PST files, etc.

Problems that result from this are:

a.

Eliminating the benefit of single-instance storage provided by EmailXtender

b.

Requiring more time to backup files on network file systems

c.

Wasting backup media

d.

Avoiding automated ILM process

e.

Utilizing more network disk space

Optimizing the messaging archive storage hierarchy

Archiving system architectures can be quite diverse in design. Architecture designs will vary based on what
factors are most important and what functionality the system will provide. Each of the following factors
must be weighed in order to provide the best solution design. A few key design factors include:

Desired level of user transparence

Access performance characteristics

Ability to prove message authenticity

Total cost of ownership

Messaging ILM
AUTOMATED POLICY MANAGEMENT VIA ARCHIVE SOFTWARE

Production

Secondary

Archiving

Disposal

Symmetrix/

CLARiiON/ATA

Centera

Per policy

CLARiiON

SERVICES AND BEST PRACTICES

EMC offers an end-to-end, three-tier storage hierarchy to maximize performance while minimizing cost
during the ILM process: EMC Symmetrix or high performance EMC CLARiiON for hosting the
message system message store; ATA CLARiiON for archiving and optimal access performance; and
Centera for record authenticity and long-term archival storage.

Applying Information Lifecycle Management to E-mail Messages

18

End-user service level agreement

The most important aspect of an accepted corporate archiving system is to ensure users have the proper
expectations and understanding of the benefits offered by the archive system. Performance expectations
need to be clearly communicated such that users will understand that as information ages, access times will
increase in order to reduce operational costs.

Client/end user communication and education

Successful implementation of a mailbox management policy requires end-user education. Users must
understand how aged message data is to be accessed and expectations must be managed to insure user
satisfaction. For initial access to e-mail messages there is no change for the end user. They will continue to
access recent e-mail messages via Outlook from the Exchange server.
End-user access to messages that have been replaced with shortcuts will be determined mostly by the
storage platform chosen for the archive. Disk-based storage platforms will have minimal impact to end
users for retrieval times. Provided only attachments to messages have been shortcut, end users may
continue to use Outlook Find as they currently do. If message shortcuts are very aggressive and the body of
the message is removed as well, end user searching will need to be provided via the EmailXtender Outlook
Plug-In or EmailXtender Web Search.
Either method will provide greater flexibility in searching for historic messages, as attachments are fully
searchable within the EmailXtender archive. Messages and shortcuts that have been removed from the
Exchange system in accordance with the mailbox management policy must be retrieved through one of the
EmailXtender search methods.

Specific deployment recommendations

Architecture recommendations

Applying Information Lifecycle Management to E-mail Messages

19

A sample EmailXtender architecture is illustrated above. The architecture can consist of EmailXtender
servers housing both current and legacy data. Based upon the use cases of the EmailXtender system, the
appropriate architecture will be designed to meet the response requirements of the customer. Mailbox
management under this architecture will provide the following benefits:

Reduced message store size

Reduced high performance disk required to store the Microsoft Exchange Message Store

Reduced backup/recovery windows for Microsoft Exchange

Less PST management risk associated with unmanaged data

These benefits are provided with minimal impact to end users.

Deployment recommendations
The main objectives of mailbox management are storage management, e-mail retention, and litigation
discovery support. In order to meet these objectives, there are many considerations that should be noted.
The main consideration during an implementation is minimizing impact to both the users as well as impact
on other scheduled processes, such as daily server maintenance. Due to the fact that most Exchange e-mail
systems vary widely, many of the processes required to implement mailbox management are dynamic.
There is no magic bullet list of steps that will be efficient for every organization.
Initial archiving and shortcutting should also be considered as data gathering steps. As archiving and
shortcutting occurs, metrics can be gathered to determine the most efficient manner to proceed after the
first mailboxes fall under the management process. For example, some of the scheduled processes listed in
the details below, may appear to be much less that the systems can process within the given times during
off-peak hours. This is a necessary step to insure that processes complete within the allotted time frame. As
more data is gathered, configurations may be altered accordingly, to achieve peak performance while
continuing to minimize impact.
Initial mailbox management rollout should be done in phases using a stepped approach, taking these factors
into consideration:

Number of users

Number of Exchange servers

Number of EmailXtender servers

Age ranges of current messages stored in the Exchange servers

Amount of total current e-mail storage

Amount of storage by e-mail age breakdown

Access frequency by end users (yet to be determined)

With that in mind, the following recommendations are made:

Phase 1: Journaling Implementation (Optional)
1.

Step One
Step one of the initial phase should be the implementation of journaling for the applicable users. This
initial phase begins the realtime capture/archiving of all identified users. This will insure that as
mailbox management begins, user mail data will exist in the EmailXtender archives and will not have
to be processed via EmailXtract. The journaling implementation can be completed as new
EmailXtender servers are rolled into production, assigning journal resources to EmailXtender servers
to distribute the load of the entire organization.

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Phase 2: Initial Rollout Mailbox Management

1.

Step One
Identify a subset of users for initial rollout. This subset should be a group of no more than 500 users.
Group selection should occur based on an analysis of the current Exchange environment similar to
sample analysis shown within this document. A selected set of users should be placed within a
distribution list available to the Global Address List.

2.

Step Two
Implement initial archive/shortcut policy for the determined set of users (User Group A). Initial
archiving of historic data can be a time-consuming process. Therefore it is essential to limit the number
of users being archived while determining system performance. Based on the analysis gained from step
one, begin with an initial archive/shortcut task of messages that are a minimum of 5 years of age. This
will result in the least impact to end users and the environment.

3.

Step Three
Step three is a continuation of the archiving and shortcutting for User Group A. Each subsequent step
will archive and shortcut a newer date range of e-mail data. For each subsequent step in the
archiving/shortcutting process add no more than six additional months of data. For example, if the
initial task in step two was an archive/shortcut policy of all items greater than five years, step three
should be configured to process all mail items greater than 4.5 years. EmailXtract sets an archive
flag on each message processed. Therefore all items from step one will be ignored by step two. Step
three processing should continue until all mail for User Group A has been reduced to shortcuts for all
mail over six months of age.
Due to the nature of e-mail storage and the likelihood that as mail age lessens, more is available to
process, statistics should be maintained regarding processing times and impact to the Exchange
environment during all steps of phase one. This will allow for further customization of subsequent
phases to minimize any impact to user or messaging system operations, such as backup.

Phase 3: Total Rollout Mailbox Management

1.

Step One
Step one of final rollout to all mailboxes being managed should begin with an analysis of the statistics
collected in phase two, step three. This analysis will allow for efficient scheduling of EmailXtract tasks
to process the additional mailboxes. Archive/shortcut tasks should be scheduled to begin and complete
during off-line/off-peak periods of the day. Task assignment should be configured to allow the
majority of the processing to complete during these times to limit impact to the environment.

Exchange data gathering

EmailXtender includes a mailbox management utility known as EmailXtract. EmailXtract is used to
perform task-based Exchange server management, including schedule based archiving and shortcutting. In
addition to these tasks, EmailXtract may also be used to help perform initial analysis of Exchange servers
when forming the mailbox management policy. EmailXtract can be leveraged to provide information about
the data currently housed in an Exchange server. Analysis should be performed to discover the age ranges
and general make up of Exchange storage. This data can be used to help determine the initial impact on the
Exchange server.

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Sample Exchange statistics

The EmailXtract Analysis of an Exchange server can return the following types of data:

Age Greater
Than

Total
Messages

Total Message
Size MB

Total
Attachments

Total
Attachment
Size MB

30 Days

668,062

36,473

205,568

32,633

60 Days

561,753

30,674

171,256

27,434

90 Days

473,045

26,242

144,269

23,551

365 Days

171,846

10,974

50,534

10,032

As shown by the above data, a shortcut policy of any attachment greater than 90 days would result in a
reduction in Exchange storage greater than 23 GB (due to attachment shortcutting).

Client communication recommendations

Prior to deployment of the EmailXtender mailbox management solution, EMC recommends that the IT
staff communicates changes and benefits that the employee is likely to experience as a result of mailbox
management services being deployed. We have included sample communication scripts and associated
screen shots for your consideration. Please consider the use of the Q & A examples provided to match the
EmailXtender client functionality your organization will be deploying.
End-User Notification Example
{company name} prides itself on providing the highest quality infrastructure and support tools so that our
employees can maximize their productivity. Over the past several years, we have worked through many
challenges that adversely affected our high quality standards for e-mail system performance. We strive to
maintain these high standards while making these business challenges transparent to you. However, several
factors are challenging our messaging system quality of service, such as:

An increase in SPAM

Our increased use and reliance on e-mail as a business communications and productivity tool

The significant growth in volume and message size primarily associated with attachments

While we believe we have these challenges under control, they do affect our ability to deliver a quality
service.
In an attempt to accommodate todays environment as well as prepare for future growth, our team is
implementing a solution to assist in managing the explosive growth of our e-mail system. This system will
focus on decreasing the overall amount of storage required by our messaging system through intelligent
archival practices. Our team will be implementing an archival strategy whereby messages that contain
attachments and are older than six months will be archived. You will still be able to access these messages
from your standard Microsoft Outlook client with minimal changes to your normal operation. We have
prepared a few commonly asked questions to assist you with understanding how the use of an archive
system will affect your use of the e-mail system.
Through the implementation of the archiving system, we expect a higher degree of client satisfaction with
the reliability of our e-mail system.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q

Does an end user know that an e-mail has been archived?

A The e-mail that is archived is simply a copy of the original message. There is no change to the e-mail on
the Exchange server during archive. When we run the shortcut process against the same e-mail, there is
an option to change the icon of the message or leave the icon as it exists.
Q

How do I access messages that have been archived?

Archived messages will continue to be accessed directly from Microsoft Outlook, just as you access
messages and attachments today. An archived message may be retrieved by simply double clicking the
message.

Does the archive system provide me with any other benefits?

In addition to decreasing the overall size of your Exchange mailbox, you will also have the ability to
search the archive for your e-mail. The deployed solution creates a full-text index for all of the
archived messages and the attachments. This will allow you to search against not only the message, but
also the full text of any of the attachments associated with those archived messages. The benefit is the
ability to locate much faster the message or attachment you are seeking. The archiving system allows
different retention policies to be applied to selected e-mail messages in order to meet corporate or
regulatory compliance mandates..

How do I search for messages in the archive?

The archiving solution provides two search methods for e-mail messages, a plug-in search client for
Microsoft Outlook and a web-based search client. Both allow for simple and complex word searches,
to/from searches, date searches, size searches, and attachment searches, as well as combination
searches utilizing multiple methods.

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Method 1 Outlook Plug-In:

To launch the search plug-in for Microsoft Outlook, click the search button on the toolbar as shown below:

The search plug-in is launched allowing you to perform the desired search.

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Method 2 Web Search Client

To launch the web search client, simply click the link provided by your IT department or enter the provided
URL into your browser. You will be prompted for your e-mail address and your e-mail password.

The web search client is launched, allowing you to perform the desired search.

From the search client you can query and access all of your archived e-mail messages. For more
information about using the EmailXtender Search client, please see the online help files.

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Conclusion
With the explosive growth of information being sent through messaging systems, it simply isnt realistic to
expect that corporations will want to keep all of their information forever. Mailbox management is an
important function of implementing a complete ILM program. Deployment of an automated ILM solution
will enable significant cost reductions while enabling fast access to historical information.
Users will embrace a messaging ILM solution once they understand the benefits they will receive. Prior to
rolling out the ILM solution to users to enable mailbox space management, it is highly recommended to set
user expectations and service level agreements. In order to maximize user acceptance and minimize impact
on users, it is recommended that the shortcut roll out be carefully implemented in stages.
EMC offers a complete end-to-end ILM solution that enables companies to minimize the total cost of
ownership of messaging systems and information management.

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Appendix: EmailXtender terminology definitions

Archiving
Submission of e-mail and associated documents to the archiving system. E-mail items may be archived via
realtime capture (Journaling) or schedule based via EmailXtender EmailXtract. The archive process
provides a method to insert record keeping copies of e-mail into the archive environment.
Shortcutting
Shortcutting is the process of replacing an attachment and/or e-mail and attachments with links to the
associated attachments and/or e-mail within the archive. Shortcutting is the method used to reduce the
amount of storage required on the e-mail server while still maintaining easy access for the end user. Items
continue to appear within the original location. However when accessed, they are retrieved from the
archive.
Analysis
Data gathering as related to current storage requirements and make up of an Exchange environment. Assists
in determining amount of data housed in Exchange servers for specific ages, sizes, attachment percentages,
and content.

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About EMC
EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) is the world leader in information storage systems, software, networks,
and services, providing automated networked storage solutions to help organizations get the maximum
value from their information, at the lowest total cost, across every point in the information lifecycle.
Information about EMCs products and services can be found at www.EMC.com

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