Mailbox archiver agents on 2007 Exchange

[theravager]

Howdy, Just a couple of quick questions on the data archiver agent on exchange 2007.

The documentation isn't really clear and my question is.

Are there two ways to install this agents, one is installing the 32 bit client on the 64 bit exchange server. I assume this works as normal.

The other way is to setup on a separate 32 bit computers the proxy agent. If i do this is the data archive agent installed on this computer as well and nothing goes on the exchange server?

Assuming I have gathered the above info correctly why or why not would you go one way over the other for?

Thanks.

 

[Psy053]

I think you may have missed something about installing the 32Bit Agent onto the Exchange 2007 Server.

Both the Mail Archiver Agent and Mailbox Agents are 32Bit Agents (due to no 64Bit MAPI Calls I believe?) and to that affect require that a 32Bit FileSystem Agent be installed on the host in order to function.

Ordinarily, your Exchange 2007 Server will already have 64Bit Agents installed, which means that the 32Bit Mail Agents will not work. This is where multi-instancing comes in, basically, you have to install another "instance" of the FileSytem Agent (in this case 32Bit) onto the Exchange Server so you can install the Mail Agents. In the Commserve it appears as 2 hosts, independant of each other.
It is a bit of a convoluted process, and can be confusing to other administrators not familiar with the process.

The second option: Offhost Proxy, is an easier method to work by(providing you have a spare server to host it on) and by all reports actually works faster. You will need to install a FileSystem Agent, Mail Archiver Agent and MAPI Client on to the Host, with nothing additional needing to be installed on the Exchange Server. Nice and simple.

Do you currently use the Mailbox Agent on your Exchange 2007 Server? If so, how is it setup?

 

[theravager]

I use to use mailbox agents on exchange ages ago, but its pretty crap performance. It easier to do a database restore and use powershell to get what you need.

I believe v8 even has a offline browser to make this real easy, but it will be acouple of months b4 i upgrade.

Thanks for the confirmation, i did know about the 32 bit multi instancing thing, just wasn't sure if you needed anything additional on the exchange server if i used offhost.

 

[Psy053]

If you aren't happy with the Mailbox Agent performance, you may be equally unimpressed with the Data Archiver Agent as it uses the same MAPI protocol to backup the data.