Enterprise Vault Multiple Sites
I have a distributed environment spanning 2 sites connected by a WAN. Each site contains Exchange 2010 servers and I want to ensure that EVault archiving and retrieval is fast for end users. I think creating 2 EV sites is the way to go for me. Should I build SQL, Index and EVault servers in each site? If I do, is there any ineraction between the SQL servers located in each site? I Want to make sure that I dont end up with 2 separate installations of EV, as opposed to one installation with multiple sites.
So, understanding that you don't want to have two entirely seperate implementations of EV (two EV directories) then you have two choices:
1) Configure two EV sites in the one EV directory
or 2) Configure one EV site in the EV directory, but design your Vault Store Groups, Indexing, and placement of EV servers to confine traffic within each PHYSICAL site
In my opinion 2) is better because managing two EV sites, even through the same VAC, can be a bit of a pain - as you'll have to double-up on doing a lot of things like creating policies. So, my rule of thumb is always start with one EV site and only go to multiple EV sites when really justified. Usualy this justification is not based on the physical location or network, but on one of the few configuration settings you can only set at site level.
BUT, with either of these options, you still only have one Directory Database, and that will be located in one of the two physical locations. You will therefore always have some cross-WAN traffic. The only way to avoid this completely is two seperate EV directories.
A
