IT Policy - SIze restrictions

[Whitemtntn]

Would like to get some feedback from IT Managers...
What policies are people moving towards for email size receive/sending restrictions?

We're a law firm. We have a limit of 10MB for both send/receive but been getting some complaints from a few lawyers that its too low for the way people are working these days, particularly for receiving.

We're running Exchange 2003 Enterprise. Our Exch database is currently 40GB, our largest single mailbox at 4.6GB
For mailbox size control, I use Mailbox Management to remove Inbox/Sent Items emails older than 4 months and Deleted Items after 1 month (this is what I could get them to agree to, they would not go for mailbox size limits)

My concern is, as always, letting Exchange grow too large, backups taking longer, and potential attacks.. Storage is cheap, we could always buy more drives, etc.. From what I understand, Exch 2003 can have problems if mailboxes get too large, 2007 is more robust for large mailboxes?

What are people's thoughts on these issues? I'm looking to reshape policy.. What has become typical for email size limitation? Is 10MB not realistic anymore? What are the risks for raising it to say, 30 or 50MB?

Thanks- please chime in,
WhiteMtntn

 

[58sniper]

The problem with increasing the maximum message size limits is where you're going to do it. If it's just for internal mail, my response is - put the file in Sharepoint and send a link. If it's for external mail, you have to be careful, as external systems may only support the industry average of 10MB. So, even if you can send a 20MB file, it doesn't mean the other side is going to accept it.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[Whitemtntn]

For my people, it's more an issue/question of receiving larger attachments from the outside...

 

[cmeagan656]

We use a 20MB size limit. Like you, it's more for receiving larger attachments from the outside than for sending large attachments.

That said, have you considered an FTP server for file uploads? I've got a client that uses FTP for transferring large files to/from their customers.

Cheers.

 

[Whitemtntn]

Yes, I do use FTP for larger uploads. But, though useful once in a while, it's not as convenient as the lawyers would like.

 

[somedea]

Whitemtntn - I work for a law firm too and I so sympathize! I have exactly the same problem with mailbox size limits - they won't hear of having any, and backups are beginning to be a nightmare.
We also have Exchange 2003 Enterprise Edition so no size problems there, but we're upgrading from Office 2000 to Office 2007, and I actually came to this forum looking for solutions to the problem of how slow Outlook 2007 runs with large mailboxes. Right now I have my attachment size wide open, but we often have problems with recipeints being unable to receive, and so I was thinking of going with 10 MB as well.
I'm planning on telling management that the time for mailbox size limits has come. We have a document management system (Interwoven) and email they want to save can be moved there, so I think that's the answer. Wish me luck.

 

[58sniper]

I actually came to this forum looking for solutions to the problem of how slow Outlook 2007 runs with large mailboxes.

Install Office 2007 SP2.

If they insist on not doing mailbox size limits, time to look into an email archiving solution. I can recommend one.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[somedea]

Thanks, sniper, I'll try it.

 

[Whitemtntn]

Sniper- What do you recommend for email archiving?

 

[Zelandakh]

Usually GFi Mail Archiver, Zantaz or Enterprise Vault. We've covered them many times in this forum including lots of pros and cons.

For size, 2003 stores can easily go to 50GB and then move to a second store and a third and so on. Backups are stores level shouldn't be taking too long - 50GB an hour should be achieveable quite easily. Worst case scenario there is 1 hour downtime per store since you'll have stores on different arrays won't you?

If you read this forum, you'll see that I favour NO limits anywhere though a hard limit of 2GB for inbound emails is a good idea. Storage is cheap and the only other option is users creating PST files.

Just ask Pat what he thinks of those...

 

[58sniper]

Well, I wouldn't recommend any of those. But that's partly because I do some consulting for one of the leading archiving vendors, and I understand their shortcomings. I'll decline to mention which one I'd use because it would sound like a sales pitch, which is a no-no around here.

But regardless of that fact, using an archiving solution allows for increased features, and moves data out of Exchange, but still accessible to the user. They also allow for ingestion of .pst files, etc.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/