Why no stubs in Outlook after migration? 1

[NATD]

I got to dabble with something new today - we bought the archival and content indexing components.

I've done a basic setup and while neither are working properly just yet, it's the Exchange/Outlook migrations I'm asking about here.

- CV 7 sp2
- Exchange 2003
- Outlook 2003
- Windows 2003 R2

With the Exchange Mailbox Archiver client installed I made a subclient policy just for my mailbox. I set the rules to be quite aggressive so I can see what it does. Of my 300MB mailbox, I could see in the job that nearly 100MB of data was archived, which seemed good.

Using the Outlook add-on I can search and see all the archived messages. The only thing that ISN'T right is that there is no sign of the messages in my actual Inbox...ie no stub file. I DIDN'T check the 'no stubs' option.

Is there an overnight process or something that will create them? So far it's only a few hours since I ran the job.

Thanks

 

[birky]

stubbing occurs straightaway after the migration has occured...if you look at the job then when it get to about 75-80% it says stubbing, it can take a few minutes to complete though.

Have you installed correctly ie. did you publish the forms within the Exchange OFL?



Birky
CommVault Certified Engineer

 

[NATD]

Good old Birky. I totally missed that section and even had trouble finding it (browsing) when I knew what i wanted!

Anyway, after a bit of trouble due to my PC having the wrong language of Outlook installed, I made the public folder and now have lots of little stubs in my inbox which restore in about 0.5 - 1 second when I double click.

I noticed it causes and actual recovery job on the console - does that not get annoying when in full production and many users? I suppose the hope is that the right archive criteria mean most people don't need to restore on a frequent basis.

I've got a question on the file archival side of things, but I'll make a new thread for it in a few days.

 

[birky]

Glad you sorted it...stub problems usually are due to publishing the forms.

A pipe isn't open for each user that initiates a recall...first recall from any user opens up the pipe and it stays open for a while, any other user initiating a recall will also use that pipe whilst it's open.



Birky
CommVault Certified Engineer

 

[NATD]

Follow on question re PSTs.

One of the main reasons we bought the migrator / archiver was so that we can be rid of PSTs once and for all. I've been reading Books Online tonight and generally understand the various processes - we are probably in a slightly more convenient situation in that all (that we know of) PSTs are on a single share per site and each user has their own folder. I *think that negates the need for me to setup the process to go out searching clients.

What I do think I've read that DOESN'T sound like what I want is that when the PSTs are archived, it is still just stubbing it and the need for the PST remains. What I presumed to happen (and hope still is) is that ther messages get archived and the stub goes in the Exchange mailbox so that the PST can be deleted.

Am I going to be disappointed? If the situation is the worst case, how do people really ditch PSTs? Just get users to gradually pull messages into their mailbox so they get migrated from there?

 

[birky]

Hi NATD

You aren't going to be disappointed ;-)

The original .pst remains but,it only exists to allow users to recall messages that were archived from their personal folders tree.

You will notice that when installing the Outlook Add-In it asks if you want to 'Disable Outlook's Archive/Personal Storage features?'....this stops pst's being written to.

Once you have migrated the pst's you can if you want delete the personal folders tree (and any pst's) from within Outlook but, the stubs are deleted and if the user wanted to bring any files back from there they would have to come and ask you to restore it from within the CommServe console

If you are going to keep them there then you also should;-
1) Keep in mind that PST file size is not immediately reduced after archiving. To reduce the PST file size after archiving, see Article 289987 in the Microsoft Knowledge Base for the procedure on How to compact PST and OST files to eliminate deleted item space in Outlook 2002 and Outlook 2003. By following the steps in this article, PST files can be compacted to save space after they have been archived.

2) After completing a PST archiving or recovery operation, ensure that the MAPI32.dll file is removed from the <Software Installation Path>\Base installation directory on the Client, otherwise non-PST restore/recovery/retrieve jobs for Exchange may go into a pending state



Birky
CommVault Certified Engineer

 

[NATD]

Actually, that sounds like what I *didn't* want to hear (ie, I was reading Books Online correctly)

Users will expect to have those stubs, but I want to ditch PSTs. By the sounds of it I'm just going to have to think of a process where they move mail back to their mailbox and we get it archives quickly - problem will be if the move resets the 'last accessed' time.

As an alternative, if the migration is done from the PST, can the user then move the stub back to their mailbox without causing it to be restored?

For reference - I have a handful of the bigger mail users who have 5GB in their mailbox and then multiple PSTs which they move mail to when we beg them to get that mailbox down - our company outright forbids us to enforce hard quotas (thankfully we now have light at end of tunnel with the CV options)